Knock Knock

by Anders Roslund

  “Yes. He did. And you should know how much he missed you and the kids.”

  “And this?”

  Zofia turned over the whiteboard, looking at the police investigation held there by magnets.

  “It’s not over, is it, no matter how much you pretend it is?”

  “Not for me. But for you, I promise.”

  She absently looked at the forensic reports from Nils Krantz, followed Grens’s lines and arrows, trying to interpret photos whose faces were crossed out.

  “She . . . never hesitated.”

  “Who?”

  “The young police officer who saved our lives. She didn’t hesitate. She acted in the way I’ve only ever seen one other person act, like Piet. That determination. Presence of mind.”

  Zofia Hoffmann was an intelligent, warm person. It was nice to sit with her in this unexpected calm. Even if it was under unfortunate circumstances. Her husband had been his first guest in years, but she was the first woman who had sat at this table since Anni. Laura, the autopsy technician who had been his first relationship in three decades, he’d always met at her home. Soon. Soon he’d be strong enough to meet someone again, trust someone again.

  “Ewert—this is lovely. Being able to stay with you for a while. Thank you. From me and the children and Piet. But now I think I have to sleep.”

  “I put sheets and towels on the bed in the guest room.”

  “Finally I’ll be able to fall asleep—without worry.”

  “And tomorrow morning when I head off to Kronoberg, you can sleep in. I’ve got officers guarding both the entrance on Svea Road and the inner courtyard.”

  She hugged him, and it felt as natural as it was simple. He filled a glass with ice-cold water and walked out to the balcony to look out over Stockholm on a summer night. Too many thoughts, too much buzzing inside him, and he needed to find some calm before he went to bed. So many nights he’d spent out here, leaning against the railing and listening to the wind over the rooftops.

  But the calm did not come. His thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning.

  No matter how hard he tried to share in the silence, be in the stillness.

  Gut feeling. She’d talked about it. Repeated it. It wasn’t enough. That’s why he couldn’t rest. A young, fresh police officer just doesn’t act like that. Even if she is uniquely present, shoots without hesitation, and is better than everyone else.

  It didn’t make sense. She didn’t make sense.

  The time was approaching two. It didn’t matter. He found his phone and called the same contact he’d called at the beginning of this investigation. The administrator at the Swedish Tax Agency, who he sometimes traded favors with. And it was obvious when he picked up the phone he had been deeply asleep.

  “Yes . . . Hello?”

  “It’s me. I need your help.”

  “Not now.”

  “Yes now.”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “If you do, we will never work together again. And you know that next time you might be the one who needs my help.”

  The man whose name he never said out loud on the phone because that’s what they’d agreed on didn’t hang up. He asked Grens to wait, and it was possible to hear him getting out of bed and trudging out into his home.

  “What’s this about?”

  And now he pulled out a chair and turned on a computer, the sound was easy to recognize.

  “I want help with a name.”

  “Yes?”

  “Amelia Schmidt. Spelled with a s-c-h at the beginning and d-t at the end.”

  The administrator tapped on the computer’s keys, hard, smashing them like an old typewriter. A few seconds, he returned.

  “One hit—only one person by that name in the whole country. Registered in Stockholm. Twenty-two years old.”

  “That’s correct. That’s her.”

  “And what do you want to know?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. See if you can find anything else connected to the name. Anything at all. You and I have worked together before, I know you’ll know it when you see it.”

  “Give me a few minutes.”

  Grens returned to the warm wind over the rooftops of the capital, which was resting up for the day to come. There was a time when he used to come out here to see if he dared to jump. Over the balcony railing, toward the street, away from everything. When what he’d feared for so long finally happened. When Anni left him. What he didn’t realize then is that once the thing you’ve feared finally happens, it can’t happen again. And that once you know that, make peace with that, you can rebuild. Come back. Not the same as before, not the same life—but something that’s different and sometimes a little different in the most beautiful way.

  “I think I have what you’re looking for.”

  The administrator at the Tax Agency sounded almost excited, his voice clear despite his tiredness and unwillingness to get out of bed.

  “When I went through her history.”

  “Yes?”

  “I found an application for a name change—three years ago.”

  “Yes?”

  “Hannah Ohlsson.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Hannah Ohlsson. That was her name. The same social security number, but both the first and last name were changed. I never approved of that new law for name changes, makes it so easy, I mean . . .”

  “And if you follow the social security number?”

  Ewert Grens felt like he was freezing. In the middle of a warm summer night.

  “Then I end up . . .”

  Those hard clacking sounds. The tax officer really slammed his fingertips when he typed.

  “. . . nowhere. Hannah Ohlsson is nowhere to be found in the records. Has no history.”

  “Yes. She does. But only in paper form.”

  “There’s nothing here about it when I . . .”

  “Because that was the name you helped me find last time. Zana Lilaj. She was the one who became Hannah Ohlsson.”

  He never said the last part aloud.

  Who then became Amelia Schmidt.

  But he thought it.

  Just before she applied to the police academy.

  So magnificent. The pristine shores of Lake Shkodër looked like something out of a glossy travel magazine—the dark green vegetation, the soaring rocks, sky and water in that same intense shade of blue. Like stepping into a fairy tale.

  The simple motorboat huffed and puffed its way along surrounded by bird cries. It had been a while since they’d glided over the border to Montenegro, and according to the coordinates in Hamid Cana’s computer, which were now loaded in Piet Hoffmann’s telephone, they were getting close to their destination. Latifi had asked him many times what this was about and where they were going, but he never received an answer. He would, soon.

  Piet Hoffmann turned off the engine and the boat floated that last bit into a crevice that formed the narrow entrance to a beach. He jumped out, then up onto a stone with a rope in his hand, then to the next stone and a tree branch hanging there, which met him like an outstretched arm. He tied the boat to a knotty tree trunk and asked Latifi—who was still keeping his distance with his gun easily accessible—to follow him toward the mountain through dense, impenetrable bushes. Not even wild animals moved through here.

  The coordinates were no longer helpful, not precise enough. To reach their final destination, he would have to follow the instructions stored in the same document on Cana’s computer.

  Seventy-four steps north from the stone shaped like a head until you reach the split tree.

  Thirty-nine steps southwest from the split tree to the cliff’s edge.

  Fifteen steps south from the cliff’s edge along the foot of the mountain, stop at the protrusion of rock.

  There it is. The entrance.

>   They were in front of a cracked-up mountain wall. Grooves, irregularities, sharp edges. And, as he got close, he saw the outlines of a door. Impossible to make out if you weren’t looking for it.

  Run your hand along the ground until you find two orange-size bulges.

  Turn them clockwise.

  What looked like two natural formations were not that at all.

  When Piet Hoffmann grabbed hold of them, twisting them at the same time, it was as if the whole rock wall started to shake. Then out of the cracks and uneven surfaces a door slid to the side.

  “Go in, Latifi.”

  “No.”

  “Inside you’ll find my second repayment. I think you’ll be satisfied.”

  “I still don’t understand this. And I don’t take part in things I don’t understand.”

  They stared at each other, as quiet as their surroundings. Not even the constantly screaming birds seemed to want to disturb them right now.

  “You go first, Larsson. Or whatever your name is.”

  Their eyes met and Latifi pointed to the doorway. Piet Hoffmann slowly started to walk into the darkness.

  Steps echoed in the stone room.

  He lit the flashlight he was carrying, and Latifi stopped abruptly.

  “Is that . . . what the hell, Larsson . . . is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  Side by side they tried to take in this uncanny vision.

  “Of course, I’ve—my god!—heard of them, everyone who lives around here has, but I’ve always considered it a tall tale. That they . . . they’re real! . . . I never even considered it.”

  They stood in front of pallet after pallet after pallet of weapons that didn’t exist.

  And they didn’t even have to count them.

  Ten thousand copies of the world’s most powerful machine gun—the key to taking over foreign markets. The weapons cache that led to the death of a family, and then many years later to even more deaths.

  Ewert Grens had left the balcony and the view of the city he’d spent his whole life in.

  He’d never ventured elsewhere. Never longed to. This was his place, his life, and he’d made peace with that. It was good enough.

  His car was still parked outside his apartment building on Svea Road. He nodded to a colleague in uniform as he headed out, and then sank down in the front seat. He’d visited most addresses in this town by now, but Gärdet, where he was headed now, was still a surprisingly rare destination. There just weren’t many criminals living in that part. Life could be unfair like that.

  He started driving while making a new call. A new person pulled out of comfortable sleep. Life could also be unfair in that way.

  “Nils? It’s Grens.”

  Nils Krantz, the forensic technician, sounded like everyone else Ewert Grens had ever woken up in the night. Confused, slow. It took him a minute to grab the phone, get it right side up, catch his breath. While Krantz was doing that, Grens considered the fact that they were the same age. He wondered if Krantz knew you could stay on nowadays for a couple more years. Or if he even wanted to. Maybe he was counting the days that couldn’t end soon enough. Strange—they’d known each other well as colleagues for many years. And yet not at all.

  “Yes. I’m here. What do you want?”

  “The blood sample. From the window in Zaravic’s apartment.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to widen the search.”

  Krantz fumbled with the phone again. It sounded like he dropped it, looked for it. Found it.

  “I widened it as far as I could. With the help of my contact at NFC, I ran it against all four DNA banks. Trace samples, open case files, general registry, and the elimination database from our personnel. I even searched—above and beyond your request, Ewert—quite a few of the other EU databases as well. Without success.”

  “And now I want you to search in one more.”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “The police academy. I want you to compare the samples they take from students during their DNA tracking class.”

  “That’s only used as a teaching exercise, it’s not an official database.”

  “No—but it exists. And compare our sample to all of theirs. Especially those taken in the last three years. And I want you to do it now, Nils. Immediately.”

  A long, deep sigh straight into the phone.

  “That means I’ll have to wake up other people who are sound asleep.”

  “Welcome to my world, Nils.”

  Ewert Grens, during the conversation, had driven from Svea Road toward Gärdet. It wasn’t far, just a few kilometers, with almost no traffic at all. When he arrived at the right address on the right street and turned his eyes to the top floor, one window was lit despite the late hour. She was awake.

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. They were standing next to each other inside an illuminated mountain room, breathing dry air, surrounded by the smell of cellar and gun oil. It was that real surreal moment, again. Because what they were looking at didn’t exist.

  “Infiltrator.”

  When Piet Hoffmann finally began to speak, and Latifi allowed himself to listen, Hoffmann had to go back in order to go forward.

  “That’s what I was.”

  “Infiltrator?”

  “Yes.”

  Latifi rocked on the soles of his feet while his eyes drowned in the pallets of thousands of unused machine guns. He seemed to consider it, then nodded.

  “Then I think I get it. Get you.”

  “For many years, I was the Swedish police’s most important tool for taking down organized crime. I exposed criminals who were convinced I was their best friend. My work led to many arrests and aborted robberies. But this, Latifi, is by far the most significant thing I have ever done. Giving this to you. Knowing you’ll make sure these weapons are destroyed. And that no one else will have to die for this bizarre fucking scene we’re standing in the middle of, it will almost give these hellish weeks meaning.”

  Latifi was still rocking. But not as visibly.

  “And now you expect me to say thank you and let you go?”

  “Basically.”

  “Even though you killed at least three people? I have colleagues who wouldn’t ask a single question about three lives if they got ten thousand machine guns on their CVs. But I’m not one of them. I see a murderer. No matter the reason.”

  “I exchanged their lives for others. It’s you or me and I care more about me than you, so I choose me. Right? And I’d do it again.”

  The huge mountain room seemed like its own version of reality.

  The sound carried like nowhere else, bounced silently and freely then rapidly ebbed away, the light was intense and intrusive, even the air pressure seemed different. How could that be?

  Standing close like they were, shoulder to shoulder and staring into each other’s future, was a very strange feeling.

  As if nothing mattered.

  “So do what you think you have to do, Latifi.”

  As if everything did.

  “Arrest me—or let me go.”

  Amelia Schmidt. That’s what stood on the door. A handwritten note taped over a more permanent name—she must be subletting. He knocked on the door, and it reminded him of another knock on another door in another time, strangely muted, strangely hollow. Ewert Grens waited in the sleeping stairwell, knocked again. And again. And again. Until hesitant steps crossed a creaking wood floor and the lock whined as it was turned.

  “Superintendent?”

  She cracked the door. He glimpsed an eye, half a mouth.

  “Yes. It’s me. I saw the light was on.”

  “Yes?”

  “I came here because I want to talk to you.”

  She said nothing, did nothing.

  “Did you unde
rstand what I said, Amelia?”

  “Give me five minutes. I have to get dressed.”

  She pulled the door closed again, and Grens was left in a stairwell where every sound echoed: the scrape of a foot became a dull rumble; clearing one’s throat, an angry roar. And when the beep arrived inside his inner pocket, an incoming text message, it sounded like an ominous emergency alarm. Grens took out his phone and opened a text message from Nils Krantz.

  MATCH.

  POLICE ACADEMY STUDENT.

  ACCORDING TO STUDENT REGISTRY

  A CADET IN YOUR UNIT.

  AMELIA SCHMIDT.

  Maybe deep down he had still been hoping that he was wrong. That he could knock on the door one last time, shout through the letterbox that this conversation could wait for tomorrow, then wish her a good night and leave. That was no longer possible. So he sent a text message to Hermansson and Sundkvist.

  SANDHAMNS STREET 25.

  IMMEDIATE REINFORCEMENTS.

  WATCH MY SIGNAL.

  He’d just finished when the lock was turned again, and now Amelia’s face, though more than an eye and half a mouth, was still obscured by an only partially open door. They observed each other silently, just as they had when they’d sat on the sofa at the Hoffmann family’s hideout. And just like earlier, it started to feel awkward.

  “Can I come in?”

  And didn’t get any better when she wouldn’t open the door wide enough for him.

  “Amelia? I have to come inside. We need to talk. About things that aren’t appropriate for a stairwell chat.”

  Another moment of hesitation.

  Then it was as if she suddenly made up her mind, no longer stared at him, and allowed the door to swing wide. Ewert Grens stepped into a young person’s apartment, brighter colors than at his home, furniture that didn’t take as much energy as his own. A living space that seemed easy and simple to enjoy. In one corner there was a small workplace with a computer connected to three huge screens. Was it from there that she had observed Piet Hoffmann’s home, his office, and the apartment where one of his employees was killed?