The Nightmare

58

A thunderstorm is rolling regally over Stockholm. The rain beats on the windows of Carl Palmcrona’s large apartment. Tommy Kofoed and Nathan Pollock have begun the forensic investigation all over again.

It’s so dark that they turn on the ceiling lamps.

In one of the full-length wardrobes in Palmcrona’s dressing room, on the floor beneath a row of gray, blue, and black suits, Pollock unearths a black leather folder.

“Hey, Tommy,” he yells.

Kofoed, in his usual hunched-over, melancholy posture, comes into the room. “What is it?”

Nathan Pollock taps the black leather folder lightly with his gloved fingers.

“I think I found something,” he says simply.

They walk to the high window nook and Pollock undoes the clasp and opens the leather folder.

“What do we have here?” Kofoed whispers reverently.

Pollock lifts up the thin cover page with these few words on it: Carl Palmcrona’s Last Will and Testament.

They read it in silence. The document is dated March 3, three years earlier. Palmcrona has bequeathed all he owns to one person: Stefan Bergkvist.

“Who the hell is Stefan Bergkvist?” asks Kofoed after they’ve finished reading. “Palmcrona has no relatives, and no friends either as far as I’ve found out.”

“Stefan Bergkvist lives in Västerås… at least when this was written,” Pollock says. “His address is Rekylgatan 11 and-”

Pollock stops and looks up.

“He’s still a kid. According to his personal registration number, he’s just sixteen right now.”

The will had been drawn up by Palmcrona’s lawyer at the firm of Wieselgreen and Sons. Pollock flips through the appendices that list Palmcrona’s property. “There are four pension funds; one forest property, leased, of only two hectares; a partitioned farm in Sörmland, also on long-term lease; and the high-priced condominium on Grevgatan 2. The really large inheritance seems to be in a bank account at Standard Chartered Bank on the island of Jersey. Palmcrona sets its value at nine million euros.”

“It looks like Stefan has become a wealthy kid,” Pollock says.

“Yes indeed.”

“But why? What’s the connection?”

Tommy shrugs. “Who knows? Some people give everything to their dogs or their gym trainer.”

“I’m going to call him.”

“You mean, call the boy?”

“What else do you suggest?”

Nathan Pollock picks up his phone and taps in a number, asks to be connected to Stefan Bergkvist, living at Rekylgatan 11 in Västerås. He finds out that there is a Siv Bergkvist at the same address and guesses this is the boy’s mother. Nathan looks out the window at the pounding rain and the gutters flowing over.

“Siv Bergkvist,” a woman answers in a broken-sounding voice.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I’m a criminal investigator. Are you the mother of Stefan Bergkvist?”

“Yes,” she says in a whisper.

“May I speak to him?”

“What?”

“Please don’t worry. I just need to ask him-”

“Go straight to hell!” she screams and slams down the phone.

Pollock redials the number but no one answers. He looks out the window, down at the road shining in the rain, and dials yet again.

“Micke here,” a man’s voice says in a reserved tone.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I-”

“What do you want?”

Nathan hears the woman sobbing in the background. She says something to the man and he tells her he can take care of it.

“No, let me,” she says.

Steps are heard as the telephone is handed over.

“Hello,” the woman says softly.

“I really need-”

“Stefan is dead!” she screams shrilly. “You say you are a police officer and yet you say you need to talk to him! Why are you torturing me? It’s just too much…”

She’s sobbing into the receiver. Something crashes to the floor in the background.

“I’m so sorry,” Pollock says softly. “I didn’t know. I-”

“I can’t take it any longer!” she sobs. “I can’t!”

Steps are heard again and the man takes up the phone.

“This is enough,” he says.

“Please wait a moment,” Pollock says quickly. “Please tell me what happened. It’s important…”

Tommy Kofoed, who has been catching Pollock’s side of the conversation, sees him listen intently, then turn pale and run his hand over his silver ponytail.