To the Top of the Mountain

27

IT WAS WEDNESDAY morning. Or, to put it more dramatically: it was the last June morning of the millennium.

Jan-Olov Hultin preferred to call it Wednesday morning. There was hardly any reason to go over the top. Their investigation was going surprisingly slowly. He still felt rusty.

Hultin was sitting at the desk at the front of the room, waiting. While he waited, he went through the latest documents from Brynolf Svenhagen’s overexcited forensic technicians. More about the weapons. An Interpol list of places where the Russian Izh-70-300 pistols had been found; it was endless – Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro were just a few among many.

There was also a list of places that the sub-machine guns from Boden had ended up after they were stolen a few years ago. Sure enough, several had been recovered from right-wing extremist circles around Europe; two had been found with a fascist group in Bulgaria, two more with a Danish motorcycle gang. It didn’t seem unlikely, though it was far from certain, that Sven Joakim Bergwall and Niklas Lindberg had carried out the break-in at the weapons arsenal in Boden themselves. Then there were the explosives. New indications suggested that the highly explosive liquid had been developed by the South African security services during the final years of apartheid, apparently with the intention of using it at one of the ANC’s international mass meetings. But this was all still unconfirmed.

Hultin looked up and sighed. It still wasn’t time. The A-Unit could wait.

He had tried to look at the case from above, to summarise it and tie all of the threads together, but it hadn’t quite worked. Something was missing. Swedish-Yugoslav drug cartel, a lone Swedish ‘policeman’, right-wing extremist techno-robbers, sophisticated explosives from South Africa, dead war criminals from the former Yugoslavia. It stank – he couldn’t stretch his analysis any further than that. The guesswork went much further. Wasn’t there a whiff of continuation in this crime? Was the crime they were investigating really over – or was it ongoing? Were the fascist robbers really just out to steal from the drug dealer? Was that all? Wouldn’t the money, or whatever was in the hypothetical briefcase, ultimately be used for some specific goal? By this point, he was skating on increasingly thin ice.

He read on, turning to a compilation of the kingdom’s ongoing crimes from the National Police Board. A violent spring had turned into an equally violent summer. Further attacks on the police had taken place after the Malexander shootings, most recently in Malmö, where a policeman had been called to an abandoned car following a report of a theft. When he opened the door, the car exploded. He was left blind. It was an attack aimed directly at the police. This was something new, Hultin thought to himself. A new, incomprehensible trend. Why were they focusing on the police? He thought about the World Police and Fire Games for a moment. Twelve thousand competitors from every corner of the earth, coming to a country where policemen were being executed and blown up…

What else? A Norwegian with links to international alcohol and cigarette smuggling had recently been found murdered in a van to the south of Stockholm. A string of robberies was taking place on the west coast, from Ängelholm northwards. An investigative journalist specialising in Swedish Nazism had, along with his son, been blown to pieces in his car in Nacka. Everything seemed to be curiously linked to everything else. But only vaguely.

Hultin looked up again. No. Still not time.

He was starting to feel annoyed. The after-effects of the day before were still lingering. Mörner’s speech to the police Olympians, the embrace which had followed – all had left a bitter taste in his mouth. And now this meeting which he hadn’t even called – and then the idiot had the cheek to not even turn up. As though Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin had nothing better to do.

They still hadn’t had any response from the authorities of any ex-Yugoslav states other than Slovenia, where none of Gang One had left any traces. Considering the circumstances in Serbia and Kosovo, they couldn’t expect any answers from there. They could hardly expect anything from Bosnia or Macedonia either, both of them preoccupied with their own problems. He was still hoping for Croatia to come through.

He was on the verge of cancelling the meeting when the lead character came trudging in, a triumphant smile ready to burst across his face. Jorge Chavez went straight to the whiteboard and attached, on top of all the earlier pictures, three black-and-white enlargements. Each of the photographs required eight of the absurd ladybird magnets to hold it in place.

Eventually, Chavez said, pointing: ‘Especially for you, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present a curious breakthrough in the investigation. Three photographs of Tjärhovsgatan by Björns trädgård at 21.43 on Wednesday the twenty-third of June. A week ago. Pictures without parallel when it comes to the concentration of crooks.’

Hjelm and Holm looked at one another.

‘In other words, the pictures were taken a minute after the Kvarnen Killer smashed a beer glass on the head of a poor Smålander inside the bar, the entrance of which can be seen here in picture one,’ said Chavez, pointing. ‘In the middle, we have the Kvarnen Killer himself. To the right, by the wall, we have Gang Two. Minus Eskil Carlstedt and Niklas Lindberg who were, at that time, inside Kvarnen and Kumla prison, respectively. Up to the left, we have Gang One, complete with 1C here in the doorway. The driver of the Merc.’

It was completely silent in the Supreme Command Centre.

‘Picture two,’ Chavez continued in the same slightly irritating, triumphant tone. ‘Gang One is gone, the Kvarnen Killer is gone. But you can see Gang Two more clearly here. And here, beside 2B, Sven Joakim Bergwall, we’ve probably got our three unnamed robbers. Carlstedt, or 2A, the other one who died at Sickla, is inside Kvarnen, waiting to deal with the police. These three should all still be alive, though one’s injured. So, these are three of the four Sickla killers that we’re looking for. The picture’s good enough to identify them, and I spent yesterday doing just that. It wasn’t easy, but we should have enough to release the identities of all four robbers now, if you want to release them.’

He stopped talking for a moment, glancing around the silent room. Sure enough, he had their undivided attention. Then he began to draw red circles around the four faces, one after one.

‘This is Sven Joakim Bergwall, the man shot in the face. He’s followed by this man, a real jailbird called Dan Andersson, often called Danne Blood Pudding because of the burns he suffered as a young offender when a large chunk of his skin turned purple. I’m not sure how they got to blood pudding from that. Andersson’s thirty-eight and has been convicted of – wait for it – eighty-six crimes, mainly bank robberies, since the age of fifteen. He left Kumla in February and was a member of that so-called Nazi clique in there, even if the right-wing extremism has never been one of his main activities. He’s a professional criminal, simple as that.

‘This man is Roger Sjöqvist, the only member of the gang convicted of murder. Thirty-three, bodybuilder with a military background. Killed a drug dealer ten years ago, escaped when he was on leave from Tidaholm a year ago, and has been lying low ever since. He appears more frequently in right-wing extremist circles and was probably involved in a number of bank robberies. He’s a wanted man.

‘Finally, this man, the shorter of the well-built men, is the technician in the gang. Agne Kullberg, called Bullet because a tough guy can’t have a name like Agne. He’s only been inside once, for assault and battery. Was released six years ago. He beat up and blinded a Turkish pizza chef in Hagsätra. He’s thirty-six and trained as a civil engineer when he was inside, specialising in telecommunications. He’s never had any work as a civil engineer, though. Doesn’t feature directly in a right-wing extremist context, but he’s a member of a dodgy shooting club which also had two of our more notorious colleagues from Norrmalm’s police as members, as well as Bergwall.’

‘Where the hell did these pictures come from?’ Hultin exclaimed, staring at the enlargements.

‘Can’t we wait a minute before going into that?’ Chavez asked, continuing: ‘We’ve still got picture three. In this one, Gang Two have disappeared as well. It’s from when the doormen managed to block the door in Kvarnen. The Hammarby fans are still there, talking; they know it’ll be a few minutes before the police arrive, that there’s no rush. The queue, apparently full of “difficult immigrants”, didn’t exist, as you can see. Just fans. Apart from this man, who’s sadly almost completely hidden behind the fans and who, in all probability, is our so-called “policeman”.’

They looked at the figure. He could hardly be seen at all. Only the very left edge of him. He might have been dark-haired. Maybe he was wearing jeans. His right shoe was clearest. Nike Air trainers.

‘We’ll see what the technicians can do with the picture,’ said Chavez. ‘They’re working flat out.’

‘Where are the pictures from?’ Hultin asked, mustering his best ice-cold neutrality.

Chavez looked at him. There was a pause which seemed to go on for an eternity. A trial of strength. Hjelm sensed that he was looking at the beginnings of a future power struggle.

‘They were taken from a high spot nearby,’ said Chavez, telling them nothing in particular.

‘Haglund’s Semi,’ exclaimed Södermalm inhabitant, Arto Söderstedt.

Chavez was silent.

‘Where are the pictures from?’ Hultin repeated, iciness intact.

Chavez broke free from the clinch hold and leaned back against the ropes, catching his breath.

‘I can’t say for the moment,’ was all he said.

‘My room,’ said Hultin.

Chavez nodded. Then he said: ‘Just let me sum up first.’

Hultin allowed him to sum up first.

‘Times,’ said Chavez, following the Hultin model and drawing a kind of flow chart onto the whiteboard. ‘Where does this story start? What comes first? The “policeman” prepares an attack on Nedic? Why? Does he have something to sell? Is it blackmail? Is it the start of a future collaboration? In any case, he makes contact with Nedic, and Nedic goes along with delivering whatever was in that famous briefcase. It’s looking more and more like money.

‘Somehow, someone in what turns out to be Gang Two finds out that a handover is going to take place. Considering Niklas Lindberg seems to be the driving force, we can assume that it was him, or at least his so-called “Nazi clique” in Kumla, who found out about the delivery. Probably via Nedic’s right-hand man, Lordan Vukotic. Sven Joakim Bergwall and Dan Andersson are part of this gang. Andersson is released in February, so he’s probably already out when the information reaches the “clique”. Bergwall, who was released in May, and Lindberg, who was released on the morning of the twenty-fourth of June, were still inside. Maybe they happen to overhear some part of a conversation that Vukotic is having with someone inside. They realise that it’s about something big – probably just a lot of money – and they bide their time, join forces with their prison friend Dan Andersson plus Bergwall’s mate from the shooting club, the civil engineer Agne “Bullet” Kullberg, and a couple of right-wing extremist friends – the as-yet-clean Eskil Carlstedt and the murderer Roger Sjöqvist.

‘Bit by bit, they work out that a meeting’s going to take place in Kvarnen. It turns out it’s going to happen the night before Niklas Lindberg gets out. He probably thinks this seems like a happy coincidence, so he pulls Lordan Vukotic’s shoulders out of joint the same evening, to get the information out of him or just because he enjoys it. But the fact that Vukotic keeps quiet about it suggests it wasn’t just a bit of fun for Lindberg. In other words, Lindberg manages to get information out of Vukotic, probably the provisional meeting place for the handover; the other details are going to be decided in Kvarnen by the “policeman” and Nedic’s men: Gang One.

‘The “policeman” has picked a public place like Kvarnen because he’s afraid of Nedic’s men; he obviously knows what they’re capable of, after the genocides in the former Yugoslavia. Maybe they’re also working out some kind of insurance policy, so that both the “policeman” and Gang One know they’ll be leaving the meeting place alive. Maybe that’s what their conversation in English was about. Anyway, we’ve got five men led by Sven Joakim Bergwall there, too. Eskil Carlstedt, Dan Andersson, Roger Sjöqvist and Agne Kullberg are there, the latter wearing an earpiece. He’s managed to plant a microscopic listening device under the table where the “policeman” and Gang One are sitting. When the Hammarby fans start flooding in, they’re about to reach some kind of negotiated solution. Even though it starts getting crowded, they keep going. And Gang Two sits there, listening from the table against the opposite wall, even though they’re constantly being disturbed by the Hammarby fans. They must’ve reached a solution – at two the following morning in the Sickla industrial estate – just before one of the Hammarby fans decides to smash a glass on a Smålander’s head. Both Gang One and Gang Two realise they’ve got to leave as quickly as possible. Still, both manage to rapidly think the situation through. Everyone in the pub suddenly becomes a witness. Neither of the gangs can go unnoticed any longer. They know their presence is going to be remembered. That the police are going to be analysing every single detail of the scene in Kvarnen. The “policeman” makes sure the Slavs leave before him, so that they’re not linked to one another; he stays behind for a few seconds longer and is forced to show his ID to get out. We can assume that Bergwall makes sure that the only one without a record, Carlstedt, stays behind to take the questioning, and turns the mysterious gang with an earpiece into a group of salesmen out chasing women. It works. They spend the night going through their plans. Carlstedt will wait in Stockholm and come up with a nice story for the police while Bergwall, Andersson, Sjöqvist and Kullberg drive to Kumla to pick up Lindberg. They’re probably not expecting him to blow up the bunker while they’re out in the open, but he does it not least to show them who’s boss. Power markers are always important in the criminal world, as you know.

‘Then they pick up Carlstedt; maybe they park their van outside the police station and wait for Paul and Kerstin to finish their interrogation. Maybe the six of them make off to their hiding place immediately, and go through their plan for the evening. They get to Sickla just before two, planting a micro-bomb on the way, and then they wait. At two, the Mercedes arrives. Somewhere nearby, the “policeman” is waiting. He probably hears the explosion. He realises it’s gone wrong and leaves. Lindberg, Bergwall, Carlstedt, Andersson, Sjöqvist and Kullberg go over to the blown-up car. Just like in Vukotic’s cell in Kumla, it’s a precisely measured explosion. It goes off right under the back seat of the car. There were three men talking to the “policeman” in Kvarnen, so they’re presuming it’ll just be those three coming again. One of them will be sitting in the back seat. He’ll probably have the briefcase, and since it’ll contain the money, it’s likely that it’ll be bombproof. And it is. The man in the back seat, 1A, is blown up. The two survivors are forced out of the car and placed either side of it, 1B by the passenger side, and the driver, 1C, by the driver’s seat. They’re frisked. Bergwall walks around the car and stands on the other side. Carlstedt takes the briefcase from the back seat and clips the chain with some bolt cutters which we’ve found, by the way. It gets messy here.

‘Something happens to make them lose their concentration. The weapons-fixated war criminals, 1B and 1C, have – and this has been confirmed by forensics – some kind of device in their jacket sleeves which means they can hide their Izh-70-300 pistols and whip them out in a flash. Like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. A firefight breaks out. 1B shoots over his shoulder and hits Bergwall in the eye. Carlstedt, who can’t get hold of his weapon because of the briefcase, chooses to run. 1C shoots him in the back. Carlstedt’s hit in the heart and dies at the very moment he reaches safety. 1C probably already had a number of bullets in him by that point. He keeps shooting anyway, and then drops down dead with five bullets in him. 1B is also on the floor, six bullets in him. Maybe dead, though probably still alive, since Niklas Lindberg (or maybe Sjöqvist or Kullberg) then goes over and puts eighteen bullets into him. A man wearing size 7 Reeboks takes the briefcase, and finds it covered in Carlstedt’s blood. It’s Kullberg, the smallest of them; he has size 7 feet. The one who’s shot and injured is Dan Andersson, Danne Blood Pudding, with AB negative blood. The amount of blood suggests it’s a serious injury, but he’s not in hospital anywhere, so if the group hasn’t split, if it’s planning something else, then Andersson’s still with them. If they didn’t just kill him, that is. Maybe he’s starting to be a burden by now.

‘So, the Sickla Slaughterers who are still fit and healthy are: Roger “Rogge” Sjöqvist, Agne “Bullet” Kullberg. And Niklas Lindberg, of course. What about on the other front, then? There are two other fronts. The “policeman” and Rajko Nedic. Will the “policeman” do anything? Most likely not. He’s probably waiting until Nedic’s got the money back, or maybe he’s demanding new, clean money. It’s not his fault that Nedic was careless, after all. Nedic isn’t careless. He hates the thought of being careless. He conducts his illegal business with clockwork precision. He manages to run an enormous drug business and seems to enjoy working openly as a legitimate restaurateur. Not much else can have gone wrong in his life. He’s probably fuming right now. But the situation isn’t the same any more, for Nedic or for the “policeman”. The “policeman” has ended up in a nightmare situation; he can hardly have predicted that five men would die for his money, and he can hardly be comfortable with the enormous police investigation focusing on his little transaction. Nothing can take place in secret any more. Nedic knows we’ve got him in our sights, too. He knows we know more than the media are claiming. He needs to find a solution which gets him his money back, punishes the bandits and makes the “policeman” happy. Otherwise, he could take out the “policeman”, who must realise that that risk has grown. He’s safest if he’s got a rock-solid insurance policy. Presumably he has. What must be happening right now is this: Gang Two is hiding from Nedic, he’s hunting flat out for them, and the “policeman” is nervous but passive. End of story.’

Hultin’s room. The high-school student, taken down a peg or two, facing his head teacher. And yet not quite. Not mutinous or career-driven. Nyet. A proud man. A proud man asserting his rights – actually, not even his rights – against supremacy.

Supremacy felt tired.

Jorge Chavez was Jan-Olov Hultin’s best find. His own, personal find. The rest of the A-Unit had been put together based on tips and advice from various quarters, but he had found Chavez himself. Working as Norrland’s only immigrant policeman, as he labelled himself, on a nightmare duty in Sundsvall. He had proved himself to be a real success. The most energetic policeman Hultin had ever come across. And now this – what was it? Insubordination. This direct refusal to obey orders. A fantastic find, the photographs, but then this incomprehensible refusal to reveal their source.

He looked at Chavez, waiting him out. Expecting him to talk any moment. Eventually, Chavez said: ‘It’s complicated.’

Nothing more. Hultin waited. It continued in the same fashion.

‘It’s a moral conflict. An ethical dilemma. The photos have helped us with the identification, we don’t need them any more. It’s a thing of the past.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Hultin. ‘We have to give the Kvarnen Killer’s picture to the press.’

‘But we can do that without giving a source.’ And then, almost pleadingly: ‘Just as I’m saying it to you, Jan-Olov, I’m also saying it to Mörner and the Police Commissioner and the entire bloody force.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Jan-Olov Hultin neutrally.

‘Yeah,’ said Chavez, looking him in the eye. ‘You can’t afford to keep anything from Mörner after the Kentucky Killer. You’ve been given a second chance and you’re not planning on throwing it away.’

Hultin met his gaze without hesitation.

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Jorge. It’s the opposite, I have nothing to lose. Nothing at all.’

Chavez swallowed and came to a decision. He said: ‘They were taken by a paedophile living in Söder Torn. Haglund’s Semi, like Arto said. Sara Svenhagen arrested him, if you’ve heard of her.’

‘Of course,’ said Hultin. ‘I’ve known her since she was little. Brynolf’s daughter. A great policewoman.’

‘But Sara has been given orders by her boss to investigate that case in private. She can’t, under any circumstances, reveal anything related to her investigation. Not even internally.’

‘Hellberg,’ said Hultin, feeling weary. ‘A more modern detective superintendent than me. Why?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Chavez. ‘All I know is that Ragnar Hellberg has sworn her to absolute secrecy. She broke that already when she showed me the photographs. She developed them herself. At home. Because of a hunch that the paedophile might actually have captured the aftermath of the Kvarnen Killing. A hunch which was spot on.’

‘At home?’ Hultin asked knowingly.

Chavez was silent. Silent and proud. Proud of his silence.

‘Why are you going to such trouble for Sara Svenhagen?’ asked Hultin, though he was starting to understand.

Jorge Chavez took a step towards him, leaned over the desk and said clearly: ‘Because I love her.’