The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (22 page)

I was absorbed by
the museum
that
wasn’t a museum.
I hadn’t come for a visit
– I was here to get a grip on Boeck,
but if
he
was the director
,
this peculiar collection must reveal something about him.
It was a showcase for
Sweden
and there was even a
giant map
displaying
IKEA shops all around the world
,
with an up to date showroom. There were photos of Boeck shaking hands with p
rominent sponsors posing with
their latest gifts to the museum. Fictional characters from film and literature gave an additional opportunity for visitors to identify with the exhibition. It was a museum conceived to fascinate people of all ages and backgrounds by playing on nostalgia and collective memory. A dose of mid
-
visit traged
y added to the national pathos, as s
eparate mourning spaces were dedicated to the assassinations of King Gustav III a
nd Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, p
ublic representatives who’d fallen victim to ‘anti
-
Swedish forces’. There were
piles of flowers on the floor accompanied by c
a
rds written by mourning Swedes.

I wasn’t sure if they were
authentic or
recreated, but I di
dn’t like the reconstruction of intimate acts of mourning. It
was a form of extreme cynicism.
Again, a silent crowd of c
oncrete statues was standing by to r
einforce
the emotion. They were identical but their mood seemed to change depending on what they were contemplating, going from lightness and optimism to deep trauma and consternation.

Why
was Palme excluded? His assassination
in 1986
had taken
Sweden
’s innocence and foreshadowed the ideological meltd
own of the late 1980s.
Chernobyl
–
another sign of system failure
–
had followed only two months after his death.
Finland
and
Sweden
had been hit by the radioactive fallout. The longest
-
serving Finnish president, Uhro Kekkonnen, had died in August of the same year. Like Palme, he’d spe
nt his
Cold War
life walking a tightrope
between NATO and the
Soviet Union
. They’d been the lea
ders of my childhood and
i
t was highly unlikely that
Palme
’s
was an accidental omission
. T
his museum milked every emotion to the max
and his death had been
the
national trauma par excellence.
If he wasn’t there, it was for a reason
.
It said something about Boeck, but what? That he disliked Palme? So what? That could be said about half of the Swedish population.

The
Estonia
ferry disaster had a memorial room with the names of all the Swedish victims. The combination
of highs and lows was gripping and
would leave no visitor indifferent. It was a museum curated in the spirit of an end
-
of
-
year highlights television show
–
p
ur
ely based on
images and
emotion
s
, a
voiding any form of
analysis or rationalisation
. It
simply
flaunted Swedish greatness.

I was so caught up in the visit that I nearly forgot
that I’d come t
o investigate what was going on behind the scenes.
I was wondering how
the viole
nce I’d seen at the church fit
t
ed in with this. Looking at the museum
, it was difficult to imagine Boeck being involved in what I’d seen at the church. I was just thinking that the exhibition was like a giant postcard from
Sweden
,
when I was
interrupted
by light
beams shining into the museum
–
a car
parking
outside.

I hid in the men’s toilet.
It was a
terrible choice
and
I almost fainted when I saw a man washing his hands by one of the wash basins
, but
I’d been fooled again
.
It wasn’t a man, i
t was another statue
. My heartbeat was
in overdrive as
I saw a
guard head
ing
straight for the toilet
.
I
quickly
slipped into a cubicle
, convinced that h
e’d heard me. H
e
hadn’t. H
e pissed like a horse and
I
t
hought he’d never end. I watched
through the tiny gap
between the door and its
frame as he rinsed his bald head with water. He concluded by checking
his teeth. For a moment, it looked like he was neighing
.

When I came out there wa
s a strong smell of aftershave, n
othing subtle, r
eal horse perfume. I rinsed my face with cold water. It was the first time since I’d arrived on the island that I
looked at myself in a
mirror.
I had bags under my eyes and
was
in bad need of a shave
.

Leaving the men’s room, I was aware of the omnipresent eyes of the CCTV cameras. It would be difficu
lt to explore the museum unseen, but considering that no one had caught me yet, it was unlikely anyone was watching the security monitors at this time.

Heading
t
o the back of the museum housing
the ‘private’ part,
I tried to avoid the eyes of the cameras.
I passed the wax
work
of Karl XII
cross
ing swords with Peter the Great, watched by yet another
concrete statue
.
I did a double
-
take on the sword
. I thought I’d seen a flash of blood on the Swede’s sword, but w
hen I looked again it was gone.
It was just me seeing blood everywhere after shooting the guard in the forest.

I
stopped by the JAS fighter jet, which, d
ep
rived of movement and space, was nothing but
a
lifeless
desig
n
symbol
ising
Swedish neutrality.
The production of its own fighter planes and other weapons had been one of the found
ations of this policy
.
T
he Swedish Air Force was only marginally smal
ler than its British counterpart
, bearing in mind that in spite of the eno
rmous difference in population,
Sweden
is
almost double the size of the
UK
and
next door
to the Russian bear.
The hitch
with this ambitio
us
defence
approach
was that weapons had to be sold to dubious regimes to pay for the
so
-
called
independence
and neutrality
. Unsurprisingly, investigators had linked Palme’s assassination to the
illegal arms trade
. M
y mother always claimed that Swedes were pur
itan hypocrites
p
resenting themselves as the conscience of the world
,
while flogging weapons to the highest bidder.
Of course, a
ll weapons manufacturers
across the world
had to sell unethically, but most didn’t pretend to be morally superior
while doing it. The Swedis
h arrogance rubbed people up the wrong way
.

I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find
,
but I knew
something was wrong. I’d told the pol
ice officer about my suspicions and s
he’d dismissed them.
Now
I was snooping
around to understand
the circumstances of
my father
’s death
, be it a
gainst my better judgement. Reason told me to catch the next ferry to
London
, but m
y
guts
suggested
the situation wasn’t that clear
-
cut.

42

He’d been right about Magnus. The half
-
blood was more devious than he’d first appeared.
He was no fool and the burglary of Henrik’s house
to pick up the camera
had been
clumsy.
The
y should have cleared it out before his arrival, but there had been other priorities. A cre
w member had wanted to pull out and t
here could be no resignations at this point. Traitors were executed and their executions incorporated in
to
the project.
This specimen had delivered a highly convincing performance. N
o human lives were
wasted and it
was all in the
name of the cause.

Fortunately, the museum coul
dn’t be approached undetected and o
nce insid
e, it was even harder to escape.
In fact, the museum had a fail
-
proof
system
that locked down all entry points. He
preferred not to use it, part
ly because it was ugly, but mainly
because he enjoyed watching a rat in a cage. If he kept intruders out, he could never play with them. Using the exterior security barrier to keep peo
ple in gave
him
control. He
loved
impromptu
visitors and w
hen security had alerted him
about the intrusion
h
e’d jumped on a snowmo
bile and r
aced to the museum
.

His right
-
hand
man
joined him by the monitor just as
Magnus
was
leaving the toilet.
Magnus scrutinise
d
the jet fighter
and looked around
. He eyed
a CCT
V camera, but the man
was following
him from
a
secret camera positioned on the
landing gear
of the Swedish Air Force helicopter. The visible cameras were
only decoys.
When
Magnus
avoided them
,
he walked into the field of vision
of
the
real
surveillance eyes. It
mea
nt that most of the watching
was actually done by the people being watched. They
didn’t
need to be followed –
they
moved into frame
of their own will.

He should have eliminated Magnus the
n and there
, but he wanted to make sure he hadn’t spoken to anyone. Ther
e was also an element of vanity
–
h
e wanted to know if Magnus was clever e
nough to unravel his plan. He
was intrigued to find a challenger.
Of course, i
t was
stupid and could
jeopardise
his life’s work, but it was also
addictive. Being obeyed and having people k
illed at the blink of an eye had given him and still gave him a sense of empowerment, b
ut he
also felt a growing need for
resistance. He needed a measure.
Otherwise it
was too easy. He was bored with people doing what th
ey were told. It was depressing and t
he opposite of life.
The people in his team
lived in fear and
didn’t dare
to be frank
.
Being
surrounded by yes
-
men
drove him mad
. It
made him lose his bearings.
T
he only thing that kept him sane was the enemy, the idea of fighting evil and o
f rescuing
Sweden
from the dark forces, from communists and impure blood.