The Shadow Woman (29 page)

He looked at Helander. “You come with me.”

She didn’t answer as he hurried her out of the post office.

“You circle around the edge of the square, to the left, and we’ll meet up at the corner over there,” Winter said.

He entered the savings bank and came out again. The man in the cap wasn’t in the flower shop, nor was he in the Bella Napoli Pizzeria. Not in the real estate office on the corner.

“Nothing,” Helander said when they met.

They walked down the pedestrian tunnel. They walked past the newly built high school and stood in front of the cultural center. To the left Winter could see a bridge over a stream. The path forked in two after the bridge, and then again farther on, and once more after that. He thought about the fingerprint, his heart pounding.

They entered the cultural center and continued through the library and the other public spaces. They saw two teenagers wearing caps.

“He was at least forty,” Helander said.

“Yes.”

They went out and the wind hit them from the left. They continued into the wind, half-running. Up ahead lay the bus station. Winter could see the back entrance to the supermarket and the parking lot below, toward the street. Fredrik and Aneta—back on duty—moving around among the cars. Halders’s scalp was self-illuminating.

There were police officers standing by the buses. He could make out Ringmar speaking to Börjesson. Bergenhem approached from the arcade next to Konsum and shook his head when he saw Winter. We’re all here, thought Winter, the whole hardworking team, but what good is it?

He continued west across the bus station. On the other side of the road was the health clinic, and in front of him was yet another big parking lot. As he drew closer he saw a man, thirty yards away, leaning forward to unlock a red Volvo 740. He was wearing a black cap with white text and a green oilskin coat that Winter could only see the upper part of since the man was standing on the other side of the car. Winter started to run.

The man looked up, black cap pulled down over his brow. He was wearing a red scarf. It’s like watching a black-and-white film transform into color, Winter thought as he ran.

The man saw him and turned around to see if anything was happening behind him, and that’s when the others approached. A police car tore out from the bus station and accelerated toward him. The blond guy in the leather jacket sprinting toward him was now shouting something. He threw himself into the car and jammed the key into the ignition, and the Volvo roared to life. When he sent the car surging backward, the guy in the leather jacket clung to the door, but then flew off when he popped the clutch and shot forward. It would have worked if the back end of a cop car hadn’t smashed right into his front on the exit ramp and then been dragged halfway across the damn street on the hood of his Volvo before he finally came to a stop. He couldn’t get the door open, so he threw himself to the passenger side and stepped out onto the asphalt, which was when that goddamn skinhead came at him and barreled into his stomach skull-first, and the air just exploded out of him and he crumbled to the ground after two steps, and the skinhead flew onto him again.

 

“You okay?” Halders asked.

“Just a little scratch,” Winter said, peering at his elbow through the hole in his leather jacket. “Nice work, Fredrik.”

“So that’s him,” Halders said, and looked at the man sitting in the backseat of one of the radio cars.

“He’s the one who paid the rent.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Not a word.”

“Guess we’ll have to torture him,” Halders said. “This is just the beginning. Aren’t you happy, Winter?”

“Happy?”

“It could have all gone to shit.”

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Come on, this is a big breakthrough for homicide. Look at him. He knows he’s going to come clean.”

“Nice takedown there,” Winter repeated. “I’m going to have a quick chat with Sara before we head back.”

Halders nodded and walked toward Aneta and the car. It looked as if he were going for a stroll.

Helander was waiting by the station building.

“I was negligent,” she said. “Criminally negligent.”

“We should have practiced a bit,” Winter said. “But there’s no guarantee it would have turned out differently anyway. There were a lot of people in there and he was quick.”

“Bullshit.”

Winter lit up a Corps. It tasted good. “Okay. But we had a preparedness that worked.”

“He wasn’t suspicious,” Helander said. “Not even when you came running toward him. Isn’t that strange?”

“We’ll have to see what he says and who he is,” Winter said. “If his name matches what his driver’s license says—that is, if he’s got one.” He took a drag and studied the smoke that followed the wind up toward the sky.

THE MAN’S NAME WAS OSKAR JAKOBSSON AND HE HAD HIS
own registration number at the station. They’d pulled the fingerprints from the slip and compared it to the ten-print database and the system found a match. Oskar Jakobsson had a criminal background. Nothing big.

He’d done time for larceny and battery against friends and had been convicted of car theft, and he had done stuff they didn’t know about, Winter thought as he sat in front of Jakobsson, who looked worried but not desperate. He was prepared for a detention lasting twelve hours and maybe longer, but not a lot longer. He claimed that he knew what he had done, but not why.

“Of course you help someone out when they ask you. Of course you do.”

Beneath the baseball cap his hair was dark brown and disheveled. Jakobsson had declined the offer of a comb, but had said yes to coffee. He had a scar above his chin, like a proper criminal who’s had broken bottles shoved in his face in his time.

“You’re happy to lend a hand?” Winter asked.

“People help me out.”

“Tell us again from the beginning.”

“From when?”

“From when you were asked if you’d be willing to help out.”

The tape recorder was turning on the table between them. The interrogating officer, Gabriel Cohen, sat next to Winter and was silent. No one else was in the room. There were no windows. The ventilation system droned from the walls. When Jakobsson asked if he could smoke, Winter said no.

“I’d just parked,” Jakobsson said.

Winter wondered how the man had managed to drive a car around for months without getting stopped. He’d never had a driver’s license. The car belonged to his brother, who seldom drove.

“When was that?”

“When was it I parked? Last month. Unless it was the end of the month before that. At the same spot in the parking lot where I was standing this time. Maybe a luck—”

“What were you going to do?”

“Do? I was going to do some shopping.”

“Where?”

“At the Terningen supermarket. My brother wanted some
snus
, so did I, and a loaf of bread and some potatoes.”

“Okay,” Winter said. “You’ve just locked the car and are about to walk away from it. What happens then?”

“She comes up to me after I’ve turned around and maybe taken a step or two.”

“You didn’t see her before?”

“No.”

“Did you see this woman after you parked but before you got out of the car?”

“No. Not that I remember.”

“So you got out of the car and took a few steps. What happened then?”

“Like I said. She came up to me with that damn envelope.”

“She had an envelope?”

“Yeah.”

“What did it look like?”

“What are you asking about that for? You already have it for Christ’s sake. You took it from the glove compartment.”

“Did it look like this?” Winter held up a white A5 envelope. “Go ahead and take it.”

Jakobsson held it in front of him. “It’s the same size, but this one was brown.”

“She came up to you, you say. You say she had the envelope. Could you see it? Was she holding it out in the open?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She asked me if I wanted to make a little cash. Well, she didn’t say ‘a little,’ come to think of it—she just asked if I wanted to make some cash.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I guess I must have just stared at her.”

“Describe what she looked like.”

“There wasn’t a lot you could see. Black sunglasses and a hat, so I couldn’t see any hair, but she wore a shirt and pants. That’s what I remember.”

“Was she white?”

“What do you mean, white?”

“What color skin did she have? Was she white or black?”

“Well, she wasn’t a black person, if that’s what you’re asking. She had a tan, I guess, but the shades were so big they covered almost her whole face.”

We’ll have to return to this later, Winter thought. He’s got more to tell us about her appearance. “What did she say?”

“I just told you, she asked if I wanted to make some cash.”

“What did you answer?”

“Nothing. I stared at her like a fucking idiot. It’s fucking creepy, someone just popping up out of nowhere like that and handing you an envelope.”

“What did she say then?”

“She said that I could make some cash if I did her a little favor, and then she told me what it was—that I was to go to the post office at the end of every month and pay this rent and write down the number of the apartment. That was it.”

“What was the envelope for?”

“That’s where the money was, for Christ’s sake. And a paper with the depo—direct deposit number and the other number.”

“Where’s that slip of paper now?”

“I threw it away.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I remembered the number. I have a good memory for numbers, see. And of course I wasn’t so stupid as not to realize that it had to be something a little shady. In which case you shouldn’t hang on to any little slips of paper. Never keep slips of paper—that’s my motto.”

Jakobsson looked as if he was going to smirk, and Winter felt the skin tighten around his scalp. He was full of impatience, but he kept it suppressed beneath the calm that was necessary for him to be able to make it through the interrogation.

“Say the number,” Winter said. “The direct deposit number.”

“What?”

“You’ve got a good memory for numbers, right. You said earlier that you had to pay two rents and that you had received five thousand for your trouble. Then you must remember the number.”

“Three rents,” Jakobsson said, “and I got ten thousand. Talk about a memory for numbers, huh?” He looked at Cohen, who nodded. “This guy doesn’t even remember if it was two or three rents.” Cohen nodded again.

“Okay,” Winter said. “Let’s hear the direct deposit number, then.”

Jakobsson stared at the tape recorder. The air-conditioning droned, and finally he cleared his throat. “Damn it, it’s this interrogation. It makes me nervous. It’s not so strange. You don’t even remember how many rents it was.”

“You don’t remember the number?”

“Sure I do, just not right now. I have to pay another rent, don’t I? Then I gotta remember.”

“Where is the money?” Winter asked, well aware of the answer.

“Are you kidding me? You think I’ve got it in the bank?”

“So where, then?”

“Spent, Mr. Chief Inspector. Consumed, you might say. And a long time ago.”

“What was the number you were supposed to write on the payment slip at the post office?”

“What?”

“You were supposed to write another number too. What was it?”

“I’ll know it when I’m standing there.”

“You won’t be standing there anymore.”

“No. But you know what I mean. When I have to remember, I do. It’s kind of like this motto I’ve got.”

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Winter said, edging closer to the table.

“Nobody tells me anything.”

“This is about murder and kidnapping.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“You’re involved.”

“How the hell can I be involved? What did you say—kidnapping? Murder? What the f—You guys know me, well, not you maybe, but ask some of the other officers in the building. Go on! How the hell can anyone think that Oskar Jakobsson would be involved? Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Where’s the slip of paper?”

“I told you I threw it away.”

“Where?”

“In the garbage, for fuck’s sake. At home.”

“When?”

“When? Ages ago. When I got the stuff from the woman.”

Winter decided to reveal something else to him about the reason for their interest, and at this Cohen stood up and went to get some coffee. Jakobsson then said he was dying for a smoke, and Winter took out the pack of Princes he had bought and handed it to him, lighting Jakobsson’s cigarette and a Corps for himself.

“I might have it at home,” Jakobsson said.

“So you didn’t take it with you when you were going to pay the rent at the post office? You’ve got to help me out here a little,” Winter said.

“Okay, okay. I threw it away afterward.”

“You threw it away? When?”

“After I paid it. There was a wastebasket in that room you walk through before you get to the section with the service windows. I threw it away in there.”

“Why did you throw it away? You had another rent to pay.”

Jakobsson exhaled and gazed at the smoke rising to the ceiling.

“Why did you throw it away?” Winter repeated.

“Okay, okay. I didn’t have to pay any more rents.”

“You didn’t have to pay any more rents?”

“I said, no. You were right before, although you didn’t know it. I only had to pay two rents.”

“Are you telling me the truth now?”

“Yes.”

“Why should we believe you now?”