Marked for Life (17 page)

“Okay, then...” said Gunnar.

“Yes, so I called in and said how it was.”

“You saw Hans Juhlén?” said Gunnar.

“The very same.”

“Where did you see him?” said Henrik.

“Over there.”

Nils pointed toward the dock area.

“In the docks? You saw him there?”

“Yes, and I saw him last Thursday, more than a week ago.”

“And you are certain that it was him?” said Gunnar.

“Oh yes, I'm certain it was him. I knew his parents. His dad and I were in the same class and always said those were the days.”

“Okay, but can you point out the exact place where you saw him?” said Gunnar.

“Of course, come with me, boys.”

Nils let his dog down and brushed the hairs off his overcoat. Gunnar and Henrik followed Nils across the bridge toward the dock parking lot.

“It's hard to grasp that he's dead. I mean, who can do something so evil?” said Nils.

“We're trying to find out,” said Gunnar.

“That's good. Yes, I hope I can be of some help.”

He slowly led them across the lot and up to the yellow main building where they stood outside the locked doors.

“He was walking along here. He was on his own. And seemed angry.”

“Angry?”

“Yes, he looked very angry. But he acted as if he knew where he was headed.”

Gunnar and Henrik looked at each other.

“You didn't see anyone else nearby?”

“No.”

“Did you hear any voices or other sounds?”

“No, not that I remember.”

“Did he have anything in his hands?”

“No, I don't think so, no.”

Henrik looked up at the main building and the dark office windows.

“What time was it?” he said.

“Yes, well it was in the middle of the afternoon, around three, I think. That's usually when we take her out for a walk.”

Nils looked at his dog and smiled.

“That's what we usually do, isn't it, old girl? Oh yes. We usually do that. We do, don't we?”

Gunnar pushed his hands into his pockets.

“Do you know if he had his car parked here?”

“No idea.”

“We've got to try to get hold of somebody in the office.”

Henrik phoned the police communication center and asked the operator to immediately contact the managing director of the Norrköping Docks.

“Shall we look round for the time being,” Gunnar wondered aloud and nodded in the direction of the big warehouses some distance away.

Henrik nodded in response, while Gunnar thanked Nils for his cooperation and the information he had supplied them with.

Nils raised his cap.

“Glad to be of help. I don't suppose you gentlemen have anything against my following along with you? I know a lot about the port here.”

Nils immediately started to tell about the history of the port and what it looked like on the quay in the old days. While they walked, he rambled on about the surface materials, warehouses that protected goods from the elements and the flexibility of the cranes. When he started talking about the rail cars and how they linked with the mainline, Gunnar silenced him with a polite thank-you.

“Hans came walking along here, you say?”

“Yes, he came from here.”

Nils pointed at the halls that they were now approaching.

“So perhaps he hadn't been in the office building?”

“I don't know. I said I saw him outside, not that he was in there.”

Henrik's cell phone rang. It was from the station telling him they couldn't reach the managing director and asking if they should try the person on call instead. Henrik said yes.

Gunnar took the lead as they crossed the asphalt area, and looked with curiosity between the warehouses they passed.

Henrik was not far behind, and after him came Nils with his panting dog at the end of an outstretched leash.

Gunnar saw a shed a bit further along and went toward it. He opened the door and looked in. Tables, folding chairs, a coffee machine, some cupboards and an old mat on the floor. The ceiling light was on, and the news was on the radio.

Henrik, still standing on the quay, looked around. His gaze fell on some containers far away that were lined up in a depot next to a couple of tall gantries that lifted them onto ships.

“Would you believe those metal things are transported around the world?” said Nils who had now come up beside Henrik.

“They carry anything you want... Iron, gravel, garbage, toys.”

* * *

Gunnar closed the door to the shed and noticed that the sliding door to a warehouse was open. He motioned to Henrik, trying to attract his attention. But it was futile. Henrik was focused on Nils, who carried on about the contents of the containers: “machines, timber, cars, clothes...”

Gunnar slid open the door to one side and went inside. He cast a glance at the large space. The ceiling was lighted by fluorescent lights, and the walls were steel-clad with storage shelves and cupboards lined up against the back wall. Forklifts and trucks were parked on one side, and on the floor lay...a man.

* * *

Henrik was still standing on the quay with Nils who wouldn't stop talking.

Then, as if his prayers had been answered, Henrik's phone started to ring. The station got hold of an emergency number and was now putting the call through. While he waited for someone to pick up, Henrik excused himself and walked toward the area where Gunnar had been standing a moment ago.

He peered into the shed first, but Gunnar wasn't there. Suddenly he heard Gunnar shout: “Henrik! Come here!”

Henrik ran toward the warehouse from where Gunnar's voice had called. He found his boss leaning over the body of a man.

Dead.

“Phone forensics!”

Henrik immediately dialed the station.

* * *

Jana Berzelius felt clean again.

She brewed a cup of coffee, made some oatmeal and squeezed some oranges for juice. It took her fifteen minutes to eat her breakfast. She thumbed through the morning paper without much interest before going into her study. She started up her computer and then unlocked the secret storeroom. She had hidden Thomas Rydberg's telephone and SIM card in a box. She knew that she must get rid of both right away. The box also contained the ticket with all the numbers she had found in the cell phone. She took the ticket and went and sat in front of the computer.

She nimbly keyed in the first number on the home page of the search engine and that led her to a company that sold spare parts.

The next search provided information about a lunch restaurant. The next two were a private individual and an inspector at Norrköping Docks. When she checked all the numbers Rydberg had called, she didn't find anything remarkable.

Jana fingered the parking receipt and wondered about the abbreviation in one of the outgoing text messages. Del.Tues.1.

You only wrote as cryptically as that if you had something to hide.

The message had been sent on April 4 and presumably it ought to mean Delivery Tuesday 1. But what did the 1 stand for? Was it how many? Or the date perhaps?

Jana glanced down at the right-hand corner of the computer screen. Today was April 21. Ten days to the first of May. She entered the telephone number that the text message had been sent to on the search engine. In less than a second she had an answer. The result surprised her. Could it really be correct?

She read the name again.

The Migration Board.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

THEY SAT IN
silence in the back of the van. The vehicle shook and it was very noisy inside the small space. The girl tried to brace herself against the sudden rocking.

Hades sat next to her with a dogged look on his face. His gaze was locked on a point straight in front of him.

The girl was falling asleep when the van finally stopped. The driver told them to do it quickly. Not to waste any time, just complete the mission and then come back out again.

The woman sat opposite them and fidgeted with her necklace. A thin gold chain, with a name engraved on a small ornament that hung from it. The girl couldn't stop staring at the chain. The woman twirled it between her fingers, stroked and fingered the shimmering ornament. The girl tried to read the name but it was hard to see the letters between the woman's fingers. She saw
M
...
A
...
M
.

The van jerked to a stop. That same moment she saw the last letter and she put them all together in her head to form a word:
Mama
.

The woman gave the girl an irritated look. She didn't say anything but the girl understood that the time had come.

Now they would leave the van.

And carry out their mission.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

THE POLICE CRIME-SCENE
tape vibrated in the wind. The dock area had been cordoned off and a lot of people had gathered, curious to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the other side of the police tape.

Anneli Lindgren was there working methodically in the chilly hall. Gunnar Öhrn had called in another two forensic experts one of whom had come from Linköping, and they now sat beside the dead man. They had been working with the body for two hours.

Gunnar and Henrik stood outside, freezing. They hadn't even considered taking their hats with them—they thought they were only going to talk with a witness. But they had discovered a dead man instead, and their mission at the docks had changed.

“I'm finished,” Anneli eventually called out and waved to them to come back in. “As far as I can see, he died here. He suffered powerful blows to the throat and head. I'll let Björn Ahlmann take over from here.”

She pulled off her gloves and looked directly at Gunnar.

“The third one,” she said.

“I know. I KNOW. Do you think they are related? Any similarities?” he said.

“Maybe related, but no similarities as to manner of death. Hans Juhlén and the boy were both shot, but by different weapons. This man has been beaten to death. A heavy blow to the head. Traces of bruising around his neck.”

“The boy had that too.”

“True, but apart from that there are no similarities. Unfortunately.”

Anneli pulled out her camera.

“I just need to take some pictures of the area,” she said.

Henrik nodded and looked at the man on the floor.

“He's around sixty,” he said to Gunnar.

“We've asked the manager to come to the station and identify him,” said Gunnar.

“Now?” said Henrik.

“At four.”

“We'll have a briefing after that. I must get hold of Ola first. And Mia. She never answers.”

Henrik's shoulders sagged.

The rest of Saturday was wrecked.

* * *

The price was 12990 kronor. In installments. No interest. No charges the first six months. Perfect.

Mia Bolander folded the receipt and smiled at the shop assistant, then maneuvered her 50-inch TV with 3D out of the store. It even came with a special digital-TV package. That alone was worth 99 kronor a month. The contract was for 24 months. It was worth it. Now at last she had a state-of-the-art flat screen and all the film channels. She could just about fit the carton into her wine-red Fiat Punto if she left the hatch open. On her way home, Mia wondered whether she might invite a couple of friends over for the evening to celebrate. If she provided the venue, perhaps they could be persuaded to bring along booze and nosh. She felt in her pocket for her phone but the pocket was empty. The other one was as well.

Back in her flat she found her cell with no charge under one of her pillows in her unmade bed. She dug out her charger and plugged it in. Before she could phone her friend, the telephone vibrated in her hand.

It was Gunnar Öhrn.

* * *

“Mia will soon be here,” said Gunnar and looked up at the little group of people seated around the conference table in front of him.

Henrik Levin had a grim expression. He was clearly affected by the discovery of yet another murder. Anneli Lindgren looked tired, too.

Ola Söderström, however, looked alert, almost upbeat as he drummed lightly on the table.

Only Jana Berzelius seemed her regular self. She sat ready with her notepad and pen. Her long hair was neatly blown dry and down as usual.

Gunnar started by welcoming them all, and apologized for having had to mobilize the whole team this late on a Saturday.

“Mia is on her way, but we can start without her. The reason for this meeting is Thomas Rydberg, who was found murdered today at 08:30 in the docks.”

He paused. Nobody asked any questions.

“This is the third person found dead in a week.”

Gunnar went up to the whiteboard where photos of all three victims had been posted, and he pointed to one of them.

“Here we have Hans Juhlén, shot in his home on Sunday evening April 15. No sign of a break-in. No witnesses. But on a security camera we saw this boy...”

Gunnar moved his finger from the portrait to an enlarged still from the security camera footage.

“...who, on Wednesday morning, April 18, was discovered dead at Viddviken, also shot, but by a different weapon. Everything seems to point to him, however, as being the perpetrator who murdered Hans Juhlén. But why? That we don't know.”

Gunnar put his finger on the third photo. “And today we found Thomas Rydberg. He has been identified by staff from the docks. Sixty-one, married, two grown-up children who live on their own, he's worked in the docks all his life, and lives in Svärtinge.

“Apparently he had a bit of a temper when he was young and had been convicted of assault and threatening behavior. For the last few years he has been sober. The forensic team says he was beaten to death and that his body had been in the warehouse a while, which means the murder probably took place yesterday afternoon or evening.”

“But how do we know that this murder is connected to the other two?” Ola wondered out loud.

“We don't,” said Gunnar. “At the moment we know very little. But the murder has landed in our lap. And the one connection we do have is that Hans Juhlén was also in the docks area a few days before he was murdered.”

Gunnar looked gravely at the team.

“We've got a lot to do, to put it mildly. The boy is still unidentified, and nobody has reported him missing. We've asked the Migration Board to check the asylum seekers' centers and every single school, but he is as yet unidentified. Nobody has been reported missing either. Our next step is to use Interpol.”

Anneli nodded slowly as she started speaking.

“As Gunnar reported, there is at this time no similarity between these three murders. The cause and means of death differ among all three,” she said.

“Several perpetrators, you mean?” Henrik clarified.

“Yes.”

“If it is the boy who killed Hans Juhlén, we still have at least one if not two other perpetrators out there. And the clock is ticking,” said Gunnar.

Jana swallowed and looked down at the table.

“But the question is whether the murder of Hans Juhlén is connected with the blackmail letters and with the information we gathered from Yusef Abrham,” said Gunnar. “What connection could there be between Yusef and the boy we are calling Thanatos because of his carvings?”

“Are you suggesting that the boy could have carried out the murder on the orders of Yusef?” said Henrik.

“It's just a theory. But the boy and the victim Thomas Rydberg could be part of a drug ring. The drug angle is a weak link, I know that, but it's still a link.”

“And we did find narcotics at the docks. Five bags of a white powder on a shelf under a storage cupboard,” said Anneli. “One could well imagine that it's all connected to some drug dealings.”

“Heroin?” said Ola.

“We assume. We've sent the bags for analysis,” said Gunnar.

“The boy was doped with heroin,” said Ola.

“But where does Hans Juhlén fit into all this? Was he also selling drugs?” said Anneli.

A murmur could be heard from the team.

“Right, then,” Gunnar cut in. “I know it has been long hard days for most of you, and there's still a lot to be done. I've worked with you for several years and I know what you can achieve. I want you to find any possible links between these victims. For instance, between Hans Juhlén and Thomas Rydberg. Were they born in the same town? Did they go to the same school? Cross check their relatives, friends, everything.”

Gunnar wrote
Links
on the whiteboard.

“We must investigate all the known heroin addicts in town. Ask all the contacts we know of. Get at every dealer, big or petty, every snitch, addict.”

He wrote
HEROIN
on the board.

“Ola, here's the number of Thomas Rydberg's cell phone.”

Gunnar pushed across a piece of paper toward Ola.

“Make sure I get a list of all the incoming and outgoing calls. Check if he had a computer, if he did, get it and examine it.”

Next, Gunnar wrote
Call logs
on the whiteboard and underlined the words. Jana froze. She thought about the cell she had at home. “Did you find anything at the crime scene?” Jana said briskly.

“No, nothing besides the heroin,” Anneli answered.

“Nothing else?”

“No, no tracks, no prints.”

“Security cameras?”

“No, there wasn't any.”

Jana sighed with relief internally.

“The narcotics unit should be able to analyze the heroin and trace it back to whoever is selling it. Henrik, will you follow up on this?” said Gunnar.

“Yes, sure,” said Henrik.

“Fine.”

The meeting lasted thirty minutes. When it was over, Jana pulled out her diary and thumbed through it to give the team time to leave the conference room before she did. When they had all left, she went up to the whiteboard and stopped in front of the photos of the victims. She studied each of them in detail. Her gaze fastened on the boy. His throat was blue. A mark of extreme violence.

She found herself instinctively putting her hand on her own throat. It was as if she could feel a hard pressure there...as if there was something familiar about it.

“Did you find something?”

She gave a start on hearing Ola Söderström's voice.

He came in through the open door and went up to the table.

“I forgot my notes,” he said and stretched after a pile of papers that still lay in the middle of the table. Then he came and stood beside her.

“Feels a bit panicky all of a sudden.”

He pointed toward the photographs. “That we still have little to go on, I mean. Feels a bit desperate, this narcotics angle.”

Jana nodded.

Ola looked down at his notes.

“And these letters and numbers,” he said. “I just can't get my head round these!”

Jana didn't answer. She just swallowed.

“Have you any thoughts about what they could mean?”

He held up the notes with the combinations in front of her.

She glanced at them, screwed her eyes and pretended to be thinking.

“No,” she lied.

“But they do mean something,” said Ola.

“Yes, I agree.”

“They must have a purpose.”

“Yes.”

“But I can't figure it out.”

“No.”

“Or I'm interpreting them wrongly.”

“Perhaps.”

“Frustrating.”

“Yes, I realize it is.”

Jana went to the table, picked up her briefcase and her diary and took a couple of steps toward the door.

“Better to be a prosecutor, right?” Ola said. “And avoid this sort of riddle?”

“Be seeing you,” she said, as she left the room.

In the corridor she broke into a half run. She wanted to get away from the police building as quickly as possible. It was extremely uncomfortable lying to Ola. But it was necessary.

Jana took the elevator down to the garage and walked quickly across the concrete floor to her car. Her telephone started ringing just as she sat down behind the wheel. When she saw her parents' home number, she felt like ignoring the call. But at the sixth ring she lifted the phone to her ear.

“Jana,” she answered.

“Jana, how are things with you?”

Margaretha Berzelius's voice sounded a bit uneasy.

“Just fine, Mother.”

She started the car.

“Are you coming for dinner next week?”

“Yes.”

“It's at seven.”

“I know.”

She looked in the side mirrors and started reversing out of the parking space.

“I'm making a roast.”

“Lovely.”

“Your father likes it.”

“Yes.”

“He wants to talk to you.”

Jana was surprised. That was unusual. She stopped the car and heard her father clearing his throat at the other end of the phone.

“Any progress?” he said. His voice was deep, dark.

“It's a comprehensive investigation,” said Jana.

He remained silent on his end.

She didn't say anything either. Her eyes were wide with anxiety. Something about this case seemed to have caught his attention.

“Well then,” he finally said.

“Well then,” she repeated slowly.

She ended the conversation, pressed the phone to her chin and thought about what he might have wanted to say. That she wasn't doing a proper job? That she wasn't clever enough? That she would fail?

She sighed and put the phone down on the passenger seat. She didn't see the little wine-red car coming into the garage and pulling behind her until suddenly she heard the screech of tires and a long beep of a car horn. She pressed the button on the car door to lower the window, looked behind her and saw Mia Bolander behind the wheel of her Fiat.

Mia rolled down her window furiously.

“Can't you see anything when you're in a car like that?” she hissed.

“Oh yes, the vision is good,” said Jana.

“But didn't you see me?”

“Yes,” Jana lied and smiled to herself.

Mia's face turned darker.

“A pity you didn't back out quicker—you could have crashed into me.”

Jana didn't answer.

“Quite a fancy car you got there. Comes with the job, does it?”

“No. It's my personal one.”

“You must earn plenty?”

“I earn the same as other prosecutors.”

“Evidently pretty good.”

“The car says nothing about my salary. It might have been a gift.”

Mia Bolander laughed out loud.

“Oh yeah, right!”