He Who Kills the Dragon

44.

While his simpler foot soldiers had doubtless been running round like headless chickens in Hasselstigen and out in Rinkeby, Bäckström had spent his time on slightly more demanding mental activities together with his only colleague worthy of the title, Nadja Högberg, doctor of mathematics and physics. Like him, she was also a connoisseur of fine vodka. A worthy conversational partner in a world where he was otherwise surrounded by nothing but idiots, and this was in spite of the fact that she was a woman, Bäckström thought.

When Bäckström returned to the police station after a nutritious and well-balanced meal, Nadja had knocked on his door and asked if she could come in to go through the contents of Danielsson’s pocket diary. She had the original in a plastic evidence bag, but to save time she had given him a computer printout containing all the notes in his diary, arranged in date order.

‘His notes are both concise and cryptic,’ Nadja summarized. ‘During the period from January first this year to May fourteenth, a total of nineteen and a half weeks, he made a total of one hundred and thirty-one different entries. Less than one a day on average.’

‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said, putting down the sheets she had given him, folding his hands on his stomach, and leaning back in his chair. She’s got a smart head on her shoulders, this woman, he thought.

‘The first note appears on the first day of the year, New Year’s Day, Tuesday, January first, and it reads, and I quote: “gentleman’s dinner with the boys, Mario,” end quotes. An early dinner, it looks like, since the diary indicates that it was supposed to start at two o’clock in the afternoon.’

‘Perhaps they didn’t want to take any chances.’ Bäckström grinned.

‘That must be why. They were sharp,’ Nadja agreed. ‘The penultimate note is from the same day he died, Wednesday, May fourteenth. “14.30, Bank.” And that’s also the only note during the whole period where he mentions going to the bank.’

‘Considering the size of his withdrawals, presumably he had no need to keep going every day,’ Bäckström said.

‘The most common entry,’ Nadja went on, ‘appears thirty-seven times. Practically every Wednesday and Sunday between January and May he wrote “Solvalla” or “Valla” or “Races.” I’m guessing that they all refer to the same thing, going to Solvalla racecourse to gamble, and he went practically every time there was any racing there. The last note in the diary is also from the day he died: “17.00, Valla.” He hadn’t made any entries for the coming days, weeks, or months. Seems to live day to day.’

‘No other racecourses apart from Solvalla?’ That fits in well with what we already know, Bäckström thought.

‘Not that he’s made a note of, anyway,’ Nadja said, shaking her head.

‘Now, who the hell would bother going all the way to Jägersro just to collect a few betting slips?’ Bäckström said.

‘Sixty-four notes of a miscellaneous nature. One visit to the bank, like I said, two doctor’s appointments, and a couple similar entries, then the rest are almost exclusively the names of his old friends. Roly, Gunnar, Jonte, Mario, Halfy, and so on. One, two, or more of them at a time. Several times a week.’

‘A comprehensive social life.’ Bäckström laughed. ‘Anything of interest to us, then?’

‘Anything of interest to us, then?’ he repeated.

‘I think so,’ Nadja said. ‘Thirty entries in total.’

Now she’s got that look again, Bäckström thought. This Russian’s as sharp as a fucking razor blade, he thought.

‘I’m still listening.’

‘Five of them recur at the end of each month. The days vary a bit, but it’s always the last week of the month, and it’s the same entry each time: “R ten thousand.” ’

‘What’s your interpretation?’

‘That someone with a first or last name starting with R receives ten thousand each month from Danielsson.’

‘A lover,’ Bäckström said, suddenly remembering the condoms and Viagra they had found in his flat. But remember, some of us get to fuck without paying, he thought self-consciously, even though it was far from true.

‘That’s what I think too,’ Nadja said with a smile. ‘With that in mind, I think R is the first letter of her first name.’

‘But you have no idea who she might be?’ Bäckström said.

‘I’m working on it. Only just started,’ Nadja said, smiling.

‘Okay,’ Bäckström said, grinning happily. So I daresay I’ll have the woman’s name later today, he thought.

‘Then there’s an entry from Friday, April fourth: “SL twenty thousand.” ’

‘SL,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘If he was buying monthly tickets from Stockholm Local Transport for twenty thousand, he’d have had enough for all his friends and neighbors as well.’

‘Someone with the initials SL received twenty thousand on Friday, February eighth. I’m working on that too,’ Nadja said.

Good to hear that someone’s doing some work, Bäckström thought. He himself had been struggling under a completely unreasonable amount of work for almost a fortnight now.

‘But it’s after that that it gets really interesting,’ Nadja said. ‘Really interesting, if you ask me, Bäckström.’

Really interesting?

‘Roughly once a week, four to six times each month, in total twenty-four times throughout this period, three acronyms recur: HA, AFS, and FI, always capital letters. They occur with more or less the same regularity and are always followed by a number. Each acronym is always followed by the same number: “HA five,” “AFS twenty,” “FI fifty.” The pattern repeats, with just one exception. On one occasion the acronym FI is followed by the number one hundred, then a B and an exclamation mark: “FI one hundred B!” ’

‘What’s your interpretation?’ Bäckström said, sitting and looking at the printout he had been given for simplicity’s sake, scratching his round head with his right hand.

‘I think HA, AFS, and FI are people’s initials,’ Nadja said. ‘And I think the numbers five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred refer to the amount of money being paid out. A sort of basic code, in other words.’

‘Well, he seems to have got off fairly cheaply, dear old Danielsson,’ Bäckström said, and grinned. Even I could live with a fiver, or a twenty- or fifty-kronor note, Bäckström thought. Maybe even a hundred, as long as it didn’t become a habit, of course. But it didn’t look as though it had. Just the once.

‘I don’t think so,’ Nadja said, shaking her head. ‘I think they’re multiples,’ Nadja said.

‘Multiples?’ Bäckström said. Nazdorovje? Nyet? Da? What the hell does she mean? he thought.

‘That the initials FI, who gets fifty, gets ten times as much as the initials HA, who gets five. Apart from the one occasion when he gets one hundred — in other words, twenty times as much.’

‘Exactly,’ Bäckström said. ‘Obviously,’ he said. ‘And this character AFS, who gets twenty each time, gets four times as much as HA, but only half of what FI gets...’

‘Forty percent as much, except for the time when FI gets a hundred,’ Nadja corrected.

‘Exactly, exactly, that’s just what I was about to say. But what about this “Bea,” then? After every one of these payments it always says Bea,’ Bäckström said, pointing at the list he had been given. ‘For instance, “FI fifty, Bea,” or “HA five, Bea.” What do you make of that?’

‘I think it’s code for some sort of payment,’ Nadja said. ‘People like Danielsson often used abbreviations like that. For instance pd would mean that you’ve paid. Bea might mean that you have to pay a certain amount: only he would have known.’

‘I see,’ Bäckström said, stroking his chin and trying to look smarter than he felt. ‘How much money are we talking about?

‘How much money?’ he repeated, just to make sure, considering the heavy mathematical calculations they were dealing with here.

‘Well, this is all speculation, now, as I’m sure you appreciate,’ Nadja said.

‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said, putting his printout down and leaning back. Make the most of it, Nadja, he thought. Now that you’re talking to the only person in the entire force who’s smart enough to understand what you’re saying.

‘If we assume that Danielsson took out two million kronor on the day he was murdered, and bearing in mind that it was almost six months since he was last down in that bank vault, and if he took out the same amount on that occasion, then I estimate that every month he was paying circa seventeen thousand to HA, almost seventy thousand to AFS and about one hundred and seventy thousand to FI.

‘In other words, circa two hundred and fifty thousand each month,’ she went on. ‘Over six months that comes to one and a half million. If we add in the other costs he must have incurred in connection with this activity, plus the hundred and seventy thousand that FI got on the occasion that he received the multiple of a hundred B plus exclamation mark, we end up with about two million. If we’re talking ballpark numbers, of course,’ Nadja concluded, with the linguistic flexibility that had become part of her Swedish personality.

‘I understand exactly what you mean,’ Bäckström said, having at least absorbed the most important points. If I was one of those fucking analysts at Criminal Intelligence, I’d hang my head in shame if I ever met Nadja, he thought.

‘So what are we going to do about this?’ Bäckström asked. After all, I’m still the boss here, he thought.

‘I thought we could add it to what we’ve made available to Criminal Intelligence,’ Nadja said. ‘See if there’s anyone there who has anything to offer.’

‘Go ahead,’ Bäckström said, nodding eagerly. How on earth could those morons have anything to add at this sort of level? he thought.

‘If it comes to it, we’ll just have to work it out for ourselves,’ he added.

Thirty minutes later Superintendent Toivonen stormed into Bäckström’s office. His face was deep red and he was waving the latest Criminal Intelligence information that he’d just printed off from his e-mail.

‘What the hell are you playing at, Bäckström?’ Toivonen snarled.

‘Fine,’ Bäckström said. ‘Thanks for asking. And how are you?’ Fucking fox, he thought.

‘HA, AFS, and FI,’ Toivonen said, waving the printout. ‘What the hell are you playing at, Bäckström?’

‘I get the feeling that you’re in a position to tell me that,’ Bäckström said with a friendly grin. Correct me if I’m wrong, you Finnish bastard, he thought.

‘HA as in Hassan Talib, AFS as in Afsan Ibrahim. FI as in Farshad Ibrahim,’ Toivonen said, glaring at him.

‘Doesn’t ring any bells,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘So who are these clowns?’

‘You never heard of them?’ Toivonen said. ‘You’d think they might be familiar even to people working in the lost property office, where you’ve spent the past few years. I daresay the guys in the traffic office know who they are. But you don’t?’

‘If I did, I wouldn’t have had to put it up on Criminal Intelligence, would I?’ Bäckström said. Are you thick, or what? That was a so-called rhetorical question. Chew on that, my little Finnish joker, Bäckström thought with a broad smile.

‘Just you watch yourself, Bäckström,’ Toivonen said.

And with that, he walked out.