Stalker (32 page)

They go together in Margot’s comfortable Lincoln. To make room for her stomach she’s had to move the seat so far back that she can barely reach the pedals with her feet.

Only two of the three names are left. It turns out that Sven Hugo Andersson was in Danderyd Hospital for a bypass operation when Sandra Lundgren was murdered.

Once they’re past Södertälje they head along the 225 motorway, through fields of yellow rape, past a large industrial area dominated by Astra Zeneca’s pale grey facility. They pass beneath some tall electricity pylons, then head into a forested area.

Margot puts a biscuit in her mouth, chews, tasting the crumbly mixture of sugar and butter, then the chewy, tart jam.

‘Are those Petter’s biscuits?’ Adam asks.

‘He gave them to me,’ she says, popping the next biscuit in her mouth.

‘He wouldn’t even offer one to his wife.’

‘But he was very insistent that you have a couple,’ she says, passing him the packet.

Adam takes a biscuit and eats it with a smile, holding one hand under his mouth so as not to drop crumbs in Margot’s car.

The road gets narrower, grit flies up behind them and Margot has to slow down. They can make out the occasional cottage down by the lake.

Pasi Jokala was convicted of aggravated assault, rape and attempted rape.

Margot hasn’t been on operational duty since she got pregnant, but she’s choosing to see this as an extension of office work, given that Pasi Jokala has no listed phone number.

‘Do you think he’s dangerous?’ Adam asks.

The two of them know that they shouldn’t have come out here without the National Task Force if they really believe they’ve found the unclean preacher. But, just to be on the safe side, Margot has brought her Glock and four extra magazines.

‘He has problems with aggression and a lack of impulse control,’ she says. ‘But who the hell hasn’t?’

Pasi Jokala is registered as living at the same address as the Gärtuna Revivalist Church.

Margot turns off onto a narrow gravel road through sparse forest, and can see the lake again. Some fifty cars are parked along the side of the road, but she drives all the way to the fence before stopping.

‘We don’t have to do this now,’ Adam says.

‘I’m just going to take a look,’ Margot says, checking her gun before putting it back in its holster and struggling out of the car.

They’re standing in front of a rust-red cottage with a white cross made of LED lights covering the gable end. The light inside looks like it’s filtering out of the building through narrow gaps in the wood. Behind the house a wild meadow stretches down towards the lake.

The windows are covered on the inside.

A loud voice can be heard through the walls.

A man shouts something and Margot feels a sudden pang of unease.

She keeps walking, her holster rubbing against her. It’s sitting too high, now that her stomach has grown. They walk past a water-butt, thistles a metre tall, and a rusty lawnmower. Dozens of slugs lurk in the shadowy grass beside the wall.

‘Maybe we should wait here until they’ve finished?’ Adam wonders.

‘I’m going in,’ Margot says curtly.

They open the door and walk into the hall, but now everything is completely silent, as if everyone were waiting for them to arrive.

On the wall is a poster about meetings beside the lake, and a group trip to Alabama. On a table is a bundle of printouts about fundraising for the Gärtuna Revivalists’ new church, next to a buckled cashbox and twenty copies of the Redemption Hymnal.

Adam is hesitant, but she waves him towards her. It may be a church, but she still wants him in the right position if there’s going to be any gunfire.

Margot holds her stomach with one hand as she walks through the next door.

She can hear the sound of murmuring voices.

The rest of the building is a single white church hall. The beams of the roof are held up by pillars, and everything is painted brilliant white.

There are rows of white chairs on the white floor, and up at the front is a small stage.

A couple of dozen people have stood up from their seats. Their eyes are fixed on the man on the stage.

Margot realises that the man in front of them is Pasi Jokala. He’s wearing a blood-red shirt with open cuffs that are hanging down over his hands. His hair is sticking up from one side of his head, and his face is sweaty. His chair is lying on its side behind him. The members of the small choir are silent, looking at him with their mouths open. Pasi raises his head wearily and gazes out across the congregation.

‘I was the mud beneath His feet, the dust in His eye, the dirt under His nails,’ he says. ‘I sinned, and I sinned on purpose … You know what I have done to myself, and to others, you know what I said to my own parents, to my mother and father.’

The congregation sighs and shuffles uncomfortably.

‘The sickness of sin was raging in me …’

‘Pasi,’ a woman whimpers, looking at him with moist eyes.

They all start to mutter prayers.

‘You know that I mugged a man, and beat him with a rock,’ Pasi goes on with growing intensity. ‘You know what I did to Emma … and when she forgave me, I left her and Mikko, you know that I drank so much that I ended up in hospital …’

The congregation is moving agitatedly now, chairs scrape the floor, some topple over, and one man falls to his knees.

The atmosphere grows more tense, and Pasi’s voice is hoarse from chanting. The meeting seems to be reaching a crescendo. Margot retreats towards the door, as she sees two women holding each other’s hands and speaking a strange language, incomprehensible, repetitive words, faster and faster.

‘But I put my life in the Lord’s hands and was baptised in the Holy Spirit,’ Pasi goes on. ‘Now I am the drop of blood running down Christ’s cheek, I am the drop of blood …’

The congregation cheers and applauds.

The little choir starts to sing with full force: ‘The chains of sin are broken, I am free, I am free, I am delivered of my sin, I am free, saved and free, hallelujah, hallelujah, Jesus died for me! Hallelujah, hallelujah, I am free, I am free …’

The congregation joins in, clapping along, and Pasi Jokala stands there with his eyes closed, sweat running down his face.

Margot and Adam wait outside the church and watch the congregation emerge. They’re smiling and chatting, switching their phones on and reading messages as they head towards their cars, waving and saying their goodbyes.

After a while Pasi comes out alone.

His red shirt is unbuttoned down his chest and the fabric is dark with sweat under the arms. He’s holding a plastic bag from Statoil in his hand as he carefully locks the door.

‘Pasi?’ Margot says, taking a few steps towards him.

‘The pallets are in the garage … but I need to get to the Co-op before they shut,’ he says, heading towards the gates.

‘We’re from the National Criminal Investigation Department,’ Adam says.

‘Would you please stop!’ Margot says in a sharper tone of voice.

He comes to a halt with one hand on the gatepost and turns towards Margot.

‘I thought you were here because of the advert … I’ve got five pallets of Polish Mr Muscle that I usually sell to a discount store, but they’ve cut their order …’

‘Do you live here?’

‘There’s a smaller cottage a little way away.’

‘And a garage,’ Margot adds.

He doesn’t answer, just prods a rusty pipe that’s been stuck into the ground.

‘Can we take a look?’ Adam asks.

‘No,’ Pasi leers.

‘We’ll have to ask you to come with us …’

‘I haven’t seen any ID,’ he says, almost in a whisper.

Adam holds his badge up in front of Pasi, but he barely looks at it. He just nods to himself and pulls the pipe from the ground.

‘Drop that now!’ Margot says.

Holding the pipe with both hands, Pasi walks slowly towards her. Adam moves aside and draws his Sig Sauer.

‘I have sinned,’ he says softly. ‘But I—’

‘Stop!’ Adam shouts.

Something lets go of Pasi’s tense frame. He stops and tosses the pipe into the grass.

‘I have actively sought out sin, but I am forgiven,’ he says wearily.

‘By God, maybe,’ Margot replies. ‘But I need to know where you’ve been for the past two weeks.’

‘I’ve been in Alabama,’ he explains calmly.

‘In the USA?’

‘We were visiting a church in Troy. We were there two months, I got home the day before yesterday … there was a revivalist meeting on a wooden bridge with a roof,’ Pasi smiles. ‘Like the barrel of a cannon filled with prayer and song, that in itself made the whole trip worthwhile.’

Margot and Adam keep hold of Pasi while they confirm what he says with the passport authority. It all checks out, and they apologise for troubling him, get back in the car and drive off through the dark forest.

‘So, did you see the light?’ Adam says after a while.

‘Almost.’

‘I need to go home.’

‘OK,’ she says. ‘I can talk to Thomas Apel on my own.’

‘No,’ Adam says.

‘We know he isn’t violent.’

Thomas Apel is the stake president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, out in Jakobsberg. Of the five hundred names on their list, he’s the only one who has suffered from a borderline psychotic personality disorder.

‘Let’s do that tomorrow,’ Adam pleads.

‘OK,’ she lies.

He glances sideways at her.

‘It’s just that Katryna doesn’t like being at home on her own,’ he confesses.

‘Yes, you’ve been away a lot recently.’

‘It’s not that …’

She drives slowly along the winding forest track. The baby in her stomach moves and stretches out.

‘I could have a word with Jenny,’ Margot says. ‘I’m sure she could go and be with Katryna.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he says with a smile.

‘What?’ she laughs.

‘No, stop it …’

‘Are you worried Katryna might lose her virginity?’

‘Stop it,’ Adam says, squirming in his seat.

Margot picks up a biscuit and waits for him to say whatever he’s trying to say.

‘I know Katta, and she wouldn’t want me to arrange for someone to keep her company. She just wants me to prove that I care about our relationship … I’ll go home as soon as we’ve spoken to Thomas Apel.’

‘OK,’ Margot says, and can’t help feeling relieved that Jenny isn’t going to have to spend the night with Katryna.

The private limited company, Sofa Zone, turns out to be based on Kvicksundsvägen in Högdalen industrial estate, close to the railway depot.

Erik and Joona are driving along next to a barbed-wire fence, towards thirty or so parked dustbin lorries. Grey drizzle is falling, sparkling like sand.

The little monkey girl is swinging beneath the ignition key.

In the distance white smoke is billowing from a chimney on the far side of some tall electricity wires.

They pass wide, empty roads between low industrial buildings bearing corporate flags and signs about private security companies, alarms and camera surveillance.

Barbed-wire fences glint in front of car parks full of articulated lorries, vans and containers.

The windscreen wipers sweep the rain aside mechanically, leaving a dirty triangle beyond the reach of the blades.

‘Pull over,’ Joona says.

Erik drives round an old tyre by the side of the road, slows down and stops the car.

On the other side of the road weeds and dandelions are growing in front of a tall fence crowned with four rows of barbed wire.

They stare at the big, corrugated-metal building. Rust has trickled down from the screws holding up the large sign bearing the name:
Sofa Zone
.

‘This is the Zone, isn’t it?’ Erik says seriously.

‘Yes,’ Joona says, and drifts off in thought.

Rain covers the windscreen as soon as the wipers stop. The tiny drops quickly form little streams.

The Zone’s only window is in the office at the front; it’s grimy and covered with bars. In the parking spaces next to the fence stand nine private cars and two motorbikes.

‘What are we going to do?’ Erik says after a while.

‘If Rocky is here, we try to get him out,’ Joona says. ‘And if he doesn’t agree to that, you’ll have to question him here, but … it’s not enough for him to say that the preacher takes drugs, wears make-up and—’

‘I know, I know.’

‘We need an address, a name,’ he concludes.

‘So how do we get inside?’

Joona opens the door and cool air brings a smell of wet grass into the car. The noise of the huge railway yard can be heard over the sound of the worsening rain.

They leave the car and cross the road. The rain is cooling the ground and mist is rising from the tarmac.

‘How does your hip feel?’ Erik asks.

‘Fine.’

They go through the gates into the industrial estate. There’s wet cardboard on the ground, with disintegrating labels for three-seat sofas and double divans. Through the filthy window they can see that the office is dark.

A car stops in the car park and a man in a dark-grey suit gets out and walks round the far end of the building.

They wait a few moments, then follow him along the windowless façade. Joona takes out his phone and films the car’s registration number as he passes.

On the end of the warehouse is a concrete loading bay with metal steps. Beside the large, rolling door for goods is a smaller, buckled steel door.

They carry on to the end of the building, crossing the shimmering black tarmac, past a stack of wooden pallets.

The man has disappeared.

Erik and Joona exchange a glance, then continue round the corner.

Pieces of polystyrene packaging swirl across the wet ground.

At the back of the warehouse is a skip surrounded by bindweed and thistles. All the way to the fence are mounds of sand.

Their feet leave prints in the wet sand. The man they were following evidently didn’t come this way.

The steel door by the loading bay must be the entrance to the building.

They carry on along the rear of the building, across the sand, feeling the rain drip down their necks. Close to the far corner is another metal door at the bottom of a flight of steps, with metal rails to help move wheelie-bins up and down.

‘Give me the car keys.’

Erik hands them to him and he removes the metal ring, hands back the little monkey and key, straightens out the metal and makes a hook at the end, pulls a ballpoint pen from his pocket, snaps off the clip and sticks it into the lock, then inserts the straightened keyring, pushes the clip upwards and turns the lock.