To the Top of the Mountain

41

KERSTIN HOLM HAD been moved to the Karolinska hospital. It was Tuesday, and her head hurt.

It wasn’t so strange. She had seen the X-ray. It looked like there was a hole right into her head, but it was just that her skull was thin as an eggshell above her ear. Translucent. Dan Andersson had shot away a bit of her skull. Just one hit. A bit of her skull, gone with one hit. Part of her head had been trampled into a rain-soaked lawn in Skövde. Maybe a tiny Kerstin Holm would grow up out of it, to the surprise of the hotel guests.

Though that wasn’t very likely.

She turned to Paul Hjelm, sitting on the edge of her bed with that expression of compassion that hospital visitors always have.

‘Stop it,’ she said.

‘Stop what?’ he asked.

‘That face.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It doesn’t have to mean anything.’

‘What?’

‘The thing with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It might be a coincidence.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Don’t say I’m right just because I’m in hospital and have awful hospital-breath. Tell me I’m wrong instead. Disagree with me.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Thanks. Why am I wrong?’

‘You don’t have awful hospital-breath.’

‘Why am I wrong?’

‘Because he’s been in our thoughts for so long. Because he reacted so strangely to that mention of Orpheus. Because he was sitting reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses in a packed pub. Because the others said he was pretending to read. Because, even though he was reading, he saw everything apart from the group sitting closest to him, speaking English right in his ear. Because he’s one of the three witnesses who, in spite of everything, we can’t get hold of. Because the young pair aren’t using one but two of Ovid’s metamorphoses when they contact one another. Orpheus and Eurydice and Philemon and Baucis.’

‘That’s a lot.’

‘Per Karlsson. It can’t shape the investigation, but we should keep him in mind.’

‘I agree. What happened, then? Unemployed, uneducated Per Karlsson, twenty years old, is sitting and listening to three ex-Yugoslavs and a “policeman” coming to an agreement on a meeting place. Was he there by coincidence? Did he just happen to hear it? Or was he there to listen? In which case, how did he know those gangsters were going to be there? He and his girlfriend are using Internet-enabled mobile phones belonging to Rajko Nedic’s restaurant, the Thanatos – the kingdom of the dead, of course. Something’s missing. Sure, Per Karlsson might’ve worked there temporarily – illegally, that is, unregistered – as a waiter or dishwasher, but it’s not enough. Two sophisticated mobile phones and knowledge that the meeting in Kvarnen was going to take place. That implies real closeness to Nedic, a man who doesn’t let anyone get close to him.’

‘Though it could’ve been a coincidence. He really was in Kvarnen, trying to read. Then he hears the conversation and gets hooked on it. He pretends to read and doesn’t say a word to us about the neighbouring table. He sees it as a gift from above. X number of millions as a gift to an unemployed slacker. It’s also very possible.’

‘But then they set off, each on their own, to look for the safe-deposit box. Why did they go where they did? Why to Dalarna and Västmanland, Halland and Västergötland? I mean, they can’t search the whole of Sweden. Does that mean they’ve got some kind of close knowledge of Nedic?’

‘Maybe. But that has to fall in the shadow of Niklas Lindberg. Per Karlsson didn’t exactly seem like he was a danger to society. Also, they seem to be out of the game now.’

‘True. Bloody hell, everything’s starting to spin again.’

Hjelm stood up and stared at her. She watched him spin. He looked so awkward, like all hospital visitors.

‘Stop it,’ said Kerstin Holm, spinning away.