The Blinded Man (7 page)

‘It’s unreasonable to think that before then we’ll be able to close in on a suspect and put him under surveillance. But it would be good to at least narrow the field of possible targets so that we can then call on the willing assistance of the Stockholm police force and watch maybe five or six of the most likely candidates. Keep in mind the home-alone and arriving-home-late element.

‘I suggest the following work assignments: Viggo will handle Interpol and the MO angle; Nyberg will try to track down any common enemies, with particular attention to the distant past, the Stockholm School of Economics and their paths to prominence. Holm will call people in their circles of friends and find out if there are any secret lovers or the like. Hjelm will focus on their leisure activities: sailing, golf, fraternal orders, and anything else that can be discovered. Söderstedt will tackle their business interests. And be sure to get all the help you need from the National Economic Crimes Bureau; that’s probably going to be the toughest area to deal with. And Chavez will check up on the various board memberships that both victims have held, both now and in the past.

‘I’ll be in charge of the overall picture, the assignments, decision making, and so on. This damned whiteboard is going to fill up with flow charts. It’s almost four o’clock now. I suggest we put in a few hours so we can set up an effective work plan for tomorrow.’

Hultin paused to think. Then he nodded slightly, as if to indicate that he’d said all he wanted to say. Just as he was about to stand up, Arto Söderstedt cleared his throat, and Hultin sank back into his chair.

‘What’s the work schedule going to be?’ asked Söderstedt.

‘Well, as I said, we’re all going to be putting in a lot of hours until this thing is solved. You can forget about any union contracts and legal work hours for the time being. In principle, the entire group is on call twenty-four–seven.
You
can choose to see it from the bright side – special loopholes have been created so that we can make use of the maximum allowable overtime. If this thing goes on for long, you may be earning a lot of extra pay. Or you can choose to see it from a negative point of view. Marriages and the like are going to suffer, especially if this goes on through the summer.’

Again Hultin made a motion to get up; again he sank back into his chair.

‘Just one more question,’ Söderstedt said. ‘What about Säpo?’

Hultin nodded. It was impossible to interpret his brief pause. ‘Right. Well, the Security Police will certainly be involved. As usual, they’ll carry out their parallel investigation in secret, but the plan is for us to “exchange information”.’ Hultin’s quote marks fluttered around the room like little death’s-head hawkmoths. ‘One day in the very near future, their group is going to show up here to introduce themselves and discuss the security aspects of the case. I’ve had certain indications, you might say, that the security division of the military will also step in at the slightest hint of any international military involvement. So we have several reasons to hope that this can stay on a national level.’

That was as far as Hultin’s subjective opinion went.

He got up and went out to the corridor. They followed, in single file, well aware of what lay ahead of them, and disappeared, two by two, into their respective offices.

Jorge Chavez and Paul Hjelm went into room 304. It
was
so small that it really had only enough space for the two desks, which had been shoved together. The computer stood on the crack between the two desks; the monitor could be turned to face in either direction. Squeezed into the corner of the room was a little table with a coffee-maker.

At least the minuscule room had a window facing the courtyard. Hjelm stepped over to the window and looked out. He could see sections of police headquarters surrounding a small, concrete yard. Under the window stood a little table with an old dot-matrix printer; the cables stretched like tripwires across the floor from the computer.

‘If we quickly swallow our disappointment at not getting our own offices, this will probably do just fine,’ said Chavez. ‘Which desk do you want?’

‘It doesn’t look like it makes any difference,’ said Hjelm.

Chavez sat down on the chair closest to the door, and Hjelm took the other. Both tested the chairs by rocking back and forth as they absent-mindedly leafed through the file folders on the desks in front of them.

‘Better than Sundsvall,’ said Chavez.

‘What’s better?’

‘The chairs. At least they’re better.’

Hjelm nodded, noticing the unanswered questions hovering in the air between them. He imagined that the other man noticed it too.

Chavez broke the rather oppressive silence by jumping up and asking Hjelm, ‘Coffee?’

‘That might be a good idea.’

Chavez lifted the lid of the coffee container sitting on the little table in the corner. Then he bent down and sniffed.

‘Ah,’ he said as he let the coffee grounds slide through his fingers. ‘Ah. What is it they call this? The King’s Coffee? Would you mind if I brought along a South American blend tomorrow instead?’

‘Okay, but leave that one here.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Chavez as he returned to his desk with the empty coffee pot in his hand. He leaned towards Hjelm. ‘But I think I’ll be able to make you a convert to genuine Colombian coffee, hand-ground.’

Hjelm looked at the short, eager man. ‘Can you brew that sort of thing in an ordinary Swedish coffee-maker?’

‘Ah,’ said Chavez. ‘It has many unused capabilities.’

He disappeared out into the hallway, then returned carrying the pot filled with water. He went over to the corner table and gently tipped the pot towards the coffee-maker.

‘That part about being a hero …’ said Hjelm as he heard the first drops hitting the tabletop. One by one they landed on the floor. The rest of the water ended up, as intended, in the coffee-maker, which Chavez switched on as he stuffed a filter in the basket and dumped in several spoonfuls of the King’s Coffee.

‘It just slipped out,’ Chavez said to Hjelm, with his back turned. ‘That happens. It’s an old defence mechanism.’

‘Do you have reservations about working with me?’

‘I don’t even know you,’ said Chavez to the wall.

‘Give me a break,’ said Hjelm.

Chavez turned around, went back to his chair and sat down, fixing his eyes on the desk. ‘It’s true that I know nothing about you. I have no idea what really happened during that … hostage drama. All I know is how people reacted.’

‘In Sundsvall?’

‘Let’s just say this: I’m glad I’m here and not there.’

‘With me?’

‘In a closed room.’

‘The media story isn’t correct.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to me. And it does in terms of our working relationship.’

Both fell silent. Neither man looked at the other. It started to get dark in the room. Hjelm got up to switch on the ceiling light. An unpleasant fluorescent glow gradually filled the office. Hjelm was still standing, garishly illuminated. ‘Tomorrow I’ll ask Hultin to find you a different officemate,’ he said, and went out into the hall.

The men’s toilet was right next door, and he stood there for a good long time after taking a piss. He shut his eyes and leaned forward against the wall. ‘
There are no simple acts
.’ Damn Grundström. And Hultin, who’d obviously teamed him up with Chavez as a test. He picked a speck of dirt from the corner of his eye and flicked it into the toilet bowl. He flushed it away, and as
he
slowly and methodically washed his hands, he avoided looking in the mirror.

‘Now I get it,’ said Chavez when Hjelm returned. ‘You’re the one who wants to change officemates. Get away from the Sundsvall black-head with the big mouth.’

‘Better a Sundsvall black-head with a big mouth than a world-famous black-head exterminator,’ said Hjelm as he poured two cups of coffee.

‘Just one question,’ said Chavez, taking the cup Hjelm handed him. ‘Would you have gone in if the guy was Swedish?’

‘He
is
Swedish,’ said Hjelm. For a moment neither of them spoke. ‘So should we get to work?’

Chavez slapped the file folder against the desktop a few times. ‘Let’s roll,’ he said, and then raised his index finger. ‘And hey –’

‘Let’s be careful out there,’ they both said foolishly, in unison.

‘Our age is showing,’ said Chavez, looking shamelessly young.

It was close to seven by the time Hjelm finished compiling his list. Kuno Daggfeldt and Bernhard Strand-Julén had both been members of the RSSS. Before finding out what the acronym stood for, Hjelm toyed with the idea that they had played in a punk band from the southern suburbs. But RSSS stood for the Royal Swedish Sailing Society, which had its headquarters in Saltsjöbaden.
Apparently
lots of Swedish sailing enthusiasts were members, which meant this particular link wasn’t of great interest. On the other hand, their sailing boats happened to be docked in the same place, provided they had already been launched for the season: in the Viggbyholm marina in Täby, north of Stockholm. The two men were also members of the Viggbyholm Boat Club. Hjelm wondered why Strand-Julén would dock his boat so far away when he had the Djurgården small-vessel marina practically at his doorstep. At any rate, a visit to Viggbyholm was on the agenda for the following day.

The two men were also both members of the Stockholm Golf Association, which was headquartered at the Kevinge Golf Course in Danderyd. And that was where they both played whenever they were in town. Hjelm would have to go out there as well.

Finally, the men were both members of the same fraternal lodge, the Order of Mimir. Since Hjelm didn’t know one thing about fraternal orders, he was forced to do some serious checking up on the subject. This form of activity, which for all practical purposes was unknown to the general public, was apparently widespread among the upper classes throughout Sweden. The Freemasons alone had 25,000 members divided up among 125 lodges all over the country. After he’d read through the available material and become familiar with various orders of monks as well as military associations, with government groups and non-profit organisations, all of them orders, both big and small, and after he’d learned about a whole
series
of founders of orders from the Middle Ages onwards, and after he’d become familiar with the different training procedures and levels of promotion, each one more peculiar than the last, even then he didn’t have a clue as to the true nature of the activities of these orders. Their real purpose was secret and kept hidden from public scrutiny with the help of strange laws, many centuries old, but the reference books hinted that the most obscure rituals took place within those high-class walls. In general, women were excluded.

The Order of Mimir was one of the smallest and least-known groups, which made this connection significantly more interesting than if the two men had been Freemasons or Good Templars (membership in the latter, it turned out, was impossible because of the gentlemen’s drinking habits, which were apparently well known). There were no written materials to be found about the Order of Mimir, but Hjelm managed to track down an address via a tax-evasion lawsuit in which the order had been involved six years earlier. He blessed the search engine on the Internet.

No other common leisure activities showed up. As if three weren’t enough for hard-working businessmen.

So Hjelm put together a short list of activities to be investigated further the next day: (1) The Viggbyholm Boat Club, Hamnvägen 1, Täby; (2) The Stockholm Golf Association, Kevingestrand 20A, Danderyd; and (3) The Order of Mimir, Stallgränd 2, Gamla Stan. Talk about stepping into another world.

Hjelm stretched. They had turned off the ceiling light. It was unusable for anyone who wasn’t a masochist specialising in migraines. They were now working with the light from the two desk lamps, using ordinary forty-watt bulbs. The sky outside had not yet turned dark, although it no longer provided them with any appreciable light.

Chavez had lifted the computer keyboard to his side and was typing madly.

‘Have you figured out any connections regarding their board memberships?’ asked Hjelm as he stood up.

‘Just a minute,’ said Chavez, continuing to type. ‘It’s a hell of a mess.’

‘I was thinking of taking off. Where do you live? Are you headed south?’

With an emphatic gesture, Chavez pressed
ENTER
, and the old dot-matrix printer started rattling underneath the window. He took a gulp of coffee and grimaced. ‘I live here,’ he said, then continued melodramatically, ‘This is my home.’

Hjelm stared at him, his right eyebrow raised.

‘It’s true,’ Chavez asserted. ‘There’s a room where I can spend the night two floors up. They’re going to find me a proper place to stay tomorrow. At least I hope so.’

‘Okay. See you in the morning.’

‘Sure, see you,’ said Jorge Chavez as he went over to the shuddering printer.

8

ON THE MORNING
of 2 April, Paul Hjelm sat at the breakfast table looking at his family with new eyes. Yesterday a destroyed man had consumed breakfast; today a resurrected man was telling them about his new situation. They received his news about being transferred to the city with moderate enthusiasm.

‘That’s not really surprising,’ said Danne. It seemed to Hjelm that his son was regarding him with the same expression that he himself had displayed at the sight of his wife’s menstrual blood a few days earlier. ‘You’re the Hallunda hero, after all.’

‘Of course, it’s a promotion to get out of this ghetto,’ said Tova, leaving the room before Hjelm could recover enough to ask her where she’d heard that word.

From him? Had he been spreading a bunch of shit around without even being aware that he was doing it? Had he corrupted the minds of the next generation, which had more experience than his own in dealing with what
was
foreign, in becoming familiar with it, in learning not to fear it?

Look deep into your heart
, Hjelm.

It had been exposed for a second, but only a second, and now he had to hide the sight behind tons of work. And no one in his family had a clue about how close to the abyss he had come. They saw the hero; he saw the corpse.