Third Voice (22 page)

‘She’s destroying herself.’

‘Why didn’t you take the tablets from her?’

‘Because she’d only go and fuck her way to new ones tomorrow. Anyway, she’d run in the other direction as soon as she saw me next time. I can’t drag her out of this shit, both she and I know it.’

Luna looked at Stilton. She’d moved back to the doorway again.

‘Sleep well,’ she said after a while. ‘I hope you won’t have any nightmares.’

‘You too.’

Luna pulled the door closed behind her.

It was almost half past nine and Stilton was due to meet Mette at ten. He’d just tried to get hold of Abbas again, without success. He was now standing on deck and looking out at the light veils of mist on the water: the cold air had caused quite a bit of evaporation. A large crane barge floated by further out in the water. There was a lot of crane work going on this side of Slussen. Maybe it will look all right in the end? he thought. Things have to keep moving forward, after all. Even cities. He turned around and saw Luna coming up on deck.

‘Is Muriel down there?’ he asked.

‘No, she’d already gone when I woke up.’

‘OK.’

‘And she’d nicked five hundred kronor out of my wallet too.’

They looked at each other for a few seconds. Luna shrugged her shoulders.

‘I’ll pay you back,’ Stilton said.

‘Why?’

‘I was the one who brought her here.’

‘It’s fine. Maybe she won’t need to sell her body today. Are you going somewhere?’

‘Yes.’

Finally.

That was what he felt when he went into the National Crime Squad headquarters. He was finally going to get started. He’d finally have the chance to extinguish what was burning inside him.

The last time he’d been in this building he’d been shuffled in through the back and into an interrogation room. He was still homeless then. Now he had a spring in his step, totally indifferent to any looks he got.

He’d got past that.

‘Follow me. She’s not in her office.’

Stilton followed a female police assistant through a number of corridors, most of which he knew very well, but finally they turned into some newly renovated areas that he’d never been to before, even though he’d spent more than twenty years in the building.

‘She’s in there.’

The woman pointed at a door and Stilton opened it. There was only one thing inside the room, a ping-pong table. Mette Olsäter was standing on one side of it, Lisa Hedqvist on the other.

‘Hi, Tom! We’re almost done! Close the door!’

Stilton pulled the door closed and spent about ten minutes watching Mette trying to play table tennis with minimal movements. When the ball slipped off the table so that Lisa couldn’t reach it, Mette put her paddle down on the table and grabbed her towel, visibly pleased. She was sweating copiously. Is she going to have a shower now too, Stilton wondered.

‘I’ll shower later,’ Mette said to Lisa and walked towards Stilton. ‘Hello there! You look very sprightly! Have you been on the oysters down in Marseille?!’

They went into Mette’s room. On the way there, Mette had asked about Marseille and given Stilton an earful for coming home without Abbas.

‘It’s fine, he can take care of himself,’ he said.

‘Neither of you can.’

Sometimes he got the feeling that Mette behaved like some kind of übermum. She should take care of herself instead, he thought. But he didn’t say it. Mette picked up a large bottle of water and gulped down half of it.

‘So you’re living on a barge?’

‘Temporarily.’

‘Everything is temporary with you nowadays. Are you thinking of coming back to the police?’

‘No.’

‘Then you can join forces with Olivia and open a detective agency. Two masterminds helping cats stuck in trees.’

Stilton waited for her to finish. Mette had been on at him a couple of times in the last year about the police thing. Each time he’d explained that he could never go back and each time it had ended with Mårten having to step in and change the subject. He wasn’t here now, so Stilton had to do so himself.

‘What’s that?’

He pointed at a couple of small square plastic bags that were pinned to a notice board behind Mette’s desk. He thought he recognised them.

‘Drugs. 5-IT. We’re in the middle of a big operation against online drugs at the moment.’

‘Muriel had some.’

‘And who’s Muriel?’

‘A homeless druggie, I know her from before. We ran into each other yesterday and she had a few of those.’

‘Do you know where she’d got them?’

The tone of Mette’s voice had changed considerably.

‘From a dealer, Classe Hall or something. Why?’

‘A large stash of those drugs was stolen from Customs and Excise. They’d been seized during a raid, and we’re trying to find out where they went. Classe Hall?’

‘Yes.’

Mette took out her mobile phone and keyed in a number.

‘Hi, it’s Mette! Can you look up Classe Hall? Or Clas. And talk to the drug guys if they know of someone by that name. Thanks.’

Mette ended the call.

‘Where is this Muriel?’ she said.

‘No idea, in the city.’

Mette nodded and felt it was time.

‘Rune Forss,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

Mette sat down behind her desk and took out a thin plastic file with a couple of white pieces of paper inside.

‘This is the list of what we seized at Jackie Berglund’s last year. Unbeknownst to her. Her client list. It dates all the way
back to the beginnings of her escort service, Red Velvet, in 1999.’

‘And Rune Forss’s name is on that list.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which you didn’t tell me last time I asked.’

‘I didn’t deny it either.’

‘Is there any information about how many times he used her services?’

‘No,’ Mette said. ‘But his name appears early on, so it must have started some time around 2000.’

‘Do you think he’s still doing it?’

‘No. And moreover it’s thought that she’s put her business on hold. She was pretty shaken up after we got a bit too close last year.’

Stilton got up. He’d heard what he needed to hear. Forss was on the client list. Now it was time for the next step.

‘What are you planning to do now?’ Mette asked.

‘What I should have done six years ago.’

‘Get revenge?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘It’s necessary.’

He said it without adding any frills, and Mette knew that he meant it. She shook her head a little.

‘It might not be so easy,’ she said.

‘Because?’

‘First of all, because his first sexual contacts are outside the statute of limitations. And secondly, we only have this list, which doesn’t actually prove anything, substantially. Furthermore, we’ve got hold of it in an improper way, you know that.’

Stilton knew that Mette was right. Formally there was nothing they could pin on Forss. Today. But informally it would of course make his position at the Stockholm Police impossible if it reached the media, particularly after that scandal with Captain Dress. The private sexual exploits of a high-ranking
detective with a prostitute would certainly end up splashed across tabloids.

But for that he needed proof.

Proof that he didn’t have.

He needed to find a witness, someone who was willing to come forward and confirm that Rune Forss had bought sex through Jackie Berglund.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Stilton said.

Then he left. Mette picked up her water bottle again. Abbas adrift in Marseille and Stilton chasing a high-ranking detective in Stockholm.

Not good for her heart.

She was just about to gulp down the rest of the water when Lisa Hedqvist called.

‘Clas Hall is on the drugs register, and we’ve got a great deal on him.’

‘Watch him.’

Stilton left the building and crossed the derelict Kronoberg Park. The icy wind had cleared the cold benches and semi-frozen grassy areas: not even homeless people could stand being there. Stilton knew this was a typical hangout for some of them, though not for him, it was a little too close to the building he’d just left. As he was on his way out of the park he passed by a man walking a large dog wrapped in a black fleece jumper. The dog looked sprightly, while the man shivered along in a thin jacket.

‘Get revenge?’

Stilton thought about it as he walked down towards Fridhelmsplan. He knew it was right. Both he and Abbas were seeking revenge. For fundamentally rather different reasons, but nevertheless. So what? He didn’t like the undertone in Mette’s reply, or what it was insinuating. That it was primitive to be seeking revenge. Or ‘retaliate an injustice’, as they said in the courts. What was wrong with it? What did she think that he
could do otherwise? Turn the other cheek? He’d never turned his cheek, he didn’t know how to do so now.

So?

He turned into Hantverkargatan and headed to Linas Bar.

Mink’s preferred hangout.

Mink, who’d been christened Leif Minkvist, sat at the short bar with a half-drunk beer in front of him. He was very short, balding, and during his forty years of life he’d tried most things you can try and quite a lot more. Nowadays he went easy on the heavy stuff. His pale complexion revealed quite a bit about his habits – he was a man who lived on the shady side of life.

‘Hi there.’

Mink spotted Stilton in the bar mirror in front of him. He didn’t turn around. Stilton sat down next to him. Mink had been one of his best informants during his years at the police. A bit of a weirdo, but an invaluable source of information in some areas.

Like this one.

‘How are things?’ Mink said.

‘Good. You?’

‘I’m quite stressed right now.’

‘Why?’

‘Haven’t you heard? The world is going to end on 21 December according to some bloody American Indian calendar. Of course I’m fucking stressed! Aren’t you?’

‘No. My thoughts are as follows. It’s quite a while until then and perhaps it’s best to do something worthy if everything goes tits-up.’

‘Smart.’

Mink gulped his beer. That needed to sink in. Stilton waited for him to drink up and then he leant in a little closer.

‘I need to get in touch with a prostitute who worked for Jackie Berglund about ten or twelve years ago.’

‘OK.’

‘You’re the first person I’m asking.’

‘Wise man.’

Stilton knew that Mink greatly valued respect. He liked to see himself as a professional, as Stilton’s equal, a man who could deliver. Mink slid down off the chair.

‘I’ll be in touch.’

At first she could hardly believe it. She put down the black receiver and sat completely still in her kitchen for several minutes.

Magnus Thorhed had called.

Jean Borell was willing to meet her for a short interview about his art collection, at his house on Värmdö, where a large portion of his Swedish collection was. The day after tomorrow, at six o’clock.

She leapt up from the kitchen table.

Flattery always works!

Intuitively she’d felt that the only way to edge her way to a megamagnate like Jean Borell was to find his weak point. His ego. His passion for art, the thing that made him more than just a shark, a Gordon Gekko, made him a man with deep feelings and emotions.

And then she sat down again.

What am I going to find? Out there? With him? I know what I want to find, I want to know if he murdered Bengt Sahlmann. Or whether he’s got something to do with it.

But how?

Intuition, Olivia.

She had to keep telling herself the same thing, over and over again. To build her confidence. You have antennae, Olivia, you can wheedle out the information, read undertones and overtones. He has no idea about why you’re actually there. You have the upper hand. You know what’s going on at Silvergården. You know how fragile Albion is. You know there’s a motive. You just need to get confirmation. Intuitively.

Out there.

She hoped they would be alone at his place, and that that nutmeg-scented little man wouldn’t be there, trying to poke his nose in. That would interfere with her antennae.

Then her mobile rang.

‘Hi, it’s Sandra. Are you at home?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m standing outside your building, can I come up?’

‘Absolutely!’

Olivia went into the hallway. She had time to think a few quick thoughts. Sandra, here? What time is it? Almost nine. Why is she coming here? When she opened the door she could basically see why. There was a bleary-eyed teenager with swollen eyelids and a nervous expression, wrapped in an unzipped green jacket, standing in front of her. Olivia gave her a big hug in the doorway.

‘Come in. Would you like some tea?’

Sandra shrugged her shoulders. Olivia led the way into the kitchen and put the water on to boil. When she turned around, Sandra had gone. She stepped into the living room and saw her standing in the bedroom doorway.

‘You don’t have any photos.’

Olivia walked towards Sandra and followed her gaze into the room. She didn’t have any photographs, neither there nor in the living room. She did have some, several, of herself and Maria and Arne from different places and occasions. She put all of them away about a year ago. Quite childish really looking back at it.

‘I have one,’ she said and walked towards the bedside table on the other side of the bed. ‘This one.’

‘A cat.’

‘Elvis.’

‘Where is it?’

‘He went missing.’

‘How?’

Olivia didn’t feel up to recounting the whole story now. So she said something about the water boiling, put her arm around Sandra and they went into the kitchen. Sandra sat down on a chair without taking her jacket off. Olivia watched her looking down at the table. She feels like shit, she thought, and got out two cups.

‘How are things?’

Sandra didn’t answer. Olivia let the tea brew and lit a couple of candles on the table.

‘You don’t know any more about the computer?’ Sandra almost whispered.

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘Imagine if I never get it back.’

‘Well, then I’m sure we can get you a new one.’

‘But what about all the photos?’

‘You had photos on it?’

‘Yes, loads. Imagine if I don’t get them back!’

Olivia saw how the idea of the lost photographs was torturing Sandra. She understood her. Perhaps the photographs were the only thing she had left of what she once had. She realised how important it was to get hold of that computer. For several reasons. She poured the tea. Sandra didn’t touch her cup, she sat slouched down in the chair. They sat in silence for a while. Olivia was having a hard time finding a way to connect with this closed-off girl. She hardly knew her, after all. She didn’t really know what to talk about.