The Blinded Man

by Arne Dahl

  ‘Could we go into your office?’ said Hjelm. They went into the office. ‘Ranked number ten in Europe?’ he exclaimed.

  She smiled. ‘Nope. Those dear old men have me mixed up with Lotta Neumann. She’s older than me, but ten years give or take doesn’t mean much at their age.’

  ‘So do you still have the old guest books?’

  ‘Yes, they’re in the storeroom. I can get them for you.’

  ‘Good. All of them. Starting with 1982, that is. I’ll need to take them with me, but you’ll get them back. And I’ll need to take the current book that you’ve got out there on the counter, so you’ll have to start a new one. As soon as we’re done with all of them, you can have them back. It’ll just be a matter of a few days, at most.’

  ‘I can’t let you have the one on the counter. We’re using it.’

  Hjelm sighed. He had hoped to avoid resorting to the language of intimidation.

  ‘Just listen to me. This has to do with a double murder, and there are likely to be more. Pretty soon your whole clientele could be wiped out. I have powers of authority invested in me that would make even those old guys out there start talking about a police state. Okay?’

  She slunk off.

  He never ceased to be amazed at how close ordinary speech could come to the language of intimidation. A few minor shifts in the wording, and the deed was done. Quite acceptable when spoken by the right person. Quite horrific if uttered by the wrong one.

  Hjelm emerged into suddenly radiant spring sunshine, lugging a big box filled with guest books. There wasn’t a trace of wind. Perfect golf weather, or so he assumed.

  The only indication that he’d arrived at the right place was a yellowing old label, handwritten and partially torn away, next to one of the buttons. ‘Mimiro,’ it said. There were nine other buttons in the low entryway, half a flight of stairs down, on Stallgränd in Gamla Stan. He pressed the button. Through a rusty little grating on the building intercom, a stentorian voice bellowed, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’m in the right place. I’m looking for the organisation called the Order of Mimir.’

  ‘This is the Order of Mimir. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m from the Criminal Police. It has to do with a couple of your members.’

  ‘Come in.’

  The lock buzzed, and Hjelm pushed open the worn door. It was so low that he had to stoop to enter. The hall was narrow and dingy, the air dusty and damp. It was a medieval building that looked as if it had never been remodelled. He paused for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark.

  In a doorway appeared a tall, sinewy old man wrapped in a strange, lavender-coloured cloak. He held out his hand towards Hjelm. If he hadn’t studied up on the nature of these organisations, he probably would have tried to twist the man’s arm out of its socket and at the same time avoid baring his throat.

  ‘How do you do?’ said the man, whose voice was no more of this world than he himself seemed to be. ‘I’m David Clöfwenhielm, Guardian of the Order of Mimir.’

  ‘Paul Hjelm.’ As Hjelm expected, the man had a firm handshake, though not exactly like the Freemasons, if a comparison were permitted.

  ‘You haven’t yet seen the inner sanctum.’ The words resonated from David Clöfwenhielm’s golden throat. ‘And you may never see it. How close you come depends on the reason why you’re here.’

  ‘Guardian,’ said Hjelm. ‘Is that something like a Grand Master?’

  ‘We don’t use that sort of outmoded title. We don’t want our order to risk being considered a lesser variant of the Freemasons. By the way, do you happen to know who the Grand Master of the Freemasons is here in Sweden?’

  Hjelm shook his head.

  ‘Prince Bertil,’ said Clöfwenhielm.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ said Hjelm.

  Clöfwenhielm emitted a thunderous sound, and only after it had echoed ten times was it possible to identify it as a laugh. Apparently there was some animosity between the two organisations. ‘Come in, inspector.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hjelm with no intention of correcting him as to his proper title. Any sort of promotion was undoubtedly useful in this situation.

  They slowly descended a long, winding staircase. The massive stone walls were dripping with moisture, and the ceiling was so low that the lanky Clöfwenhielm bent nearly double as he led the way. Here and there a damp-resistant torch was affixed to the wall. Finally they entered a small room with several coats of arms scattered over the walls, thick velvety drapery on the far wall and an enormous oak desk. On the desk stood two plastic cheese bells; rivulets of moisture formed and dripped off the outside of the misty, opaque surfaces. Clöfwenhielm lifted up one of the cheese bells and took out a small, ultra-modern laptop, a miracle of an anachronism. He sat down at the desk.

  ‘I assume that you want to consult our directory for some reason,’ he rumbled. His voice, which had seemed so out of place upstairs in the relative light, was now in its proper element. ‘Please have a seat, superintendent.’

  At this rate I’ll be the chief of police in another fifteen minutes, thought Hjelm as he took a small chair facing the Guardian.

  ‘Your assumption is quite correct, Guardian,’ he said in an ingratiating tone. ‘It has to do with two of your members. Both have been murdered within the past few days.’

  Clöfwenhielm didn’t look especially shocked, although perhaps a bit wary. He straightened the collar of his lavender cloak.

  ‘The brothers of the Order of Mimir usually hold positions in society where acts of violence are extremely rare. Are you insinuating that it had something to do with the Order of Mimir?’

  ‘Not at all. We’re looking into every possible connection between the two victims, and our primary concern at the moment is to prevent another murder. The fact that they were both members of this organisation is one of these connections.’

  ‘I understand. So what is this about?’

  ‘You don’t read the newspapers, Guardian?’

  ‘Very seldom any more,’ said Clöfwenhielm. ‘Having decided to devote myself to the organisation, I retired not only from my job, but also from those parts of the outside world that I find repulsive. That’s permissible when you reach a certain age.’

  ‘And a certain financial status.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clöfwenhielm, his tone neutral.

  ‘How many members does the Order of Mimir have?’

  ‘Sixty-three,’ and he said, ‘all very carefully chosen. Well, sixty-one, now,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘Of course,’ said Hjelm, his tone equally neutral. ‘Do you know all of them personally?’

  ‘What goes on within the order has very little to do with anything personal. We are preoccupied with what is above and beyond the personal. And besides, during the rituals we usually wear cloaks, rather like the one I’m wearing now, and masks of various types representing the Nordic gods. I seldom see anyone’s face. But now we’re touching on proprietary information.’

  ‘Top, top secret.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Clöfwenhielm, without for a second questioning the odd choice of words.

  ‘There’s one thing I’m curious about,’ said Hjelm. ‘Can you explain to someone who’s a complete outsider what makes these kinds of organisations so attractive to certain groups in society?’

  ‘I could give you an idealistic answer and say that we’re united by a desire to expand our consciousness, to open pathways into the unexplored parts of our souls. But that wouldn’t be entirely in keeping with the truth. Many by-products of the world I’ve left behind follow the brothers here from the outside: prestige, the feeling of being one of the chosen, an attitude of superiority, the desire to make connections, freedom from women and an often artificial sense of tradition.

  ‘The Order of Mimir can be traced back to Geijer’s Gothicism of the early 1800s, which marked a resurgence of interest in Nordic mythology. But ninety per cent of the members have no clue about this. If
I required of the brothers the same purity and enthusiasm that I expect of myself, I would be sitting here chanting all alone. And that might not be such a bad idea.’ Clöfwenhielm sighed a bit before returning to his usual thunderous tone of voice. ‘All right, so what are the names of the two departed brothers?’

  ‘Kuno Daggfeldt and Bernhard Strand-Julén.’

  The Guardian of the Order of Mimir let his fingers wander over the computer keyboard. ‘I see,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Once again we have taken a small step across the magical border into secrecy.’

  ‘Do you mean that we’re touching on confidential matters?’

  ‘We’re bordering on that, in any case. Allow me to think for a moment.’

  David Clöfwenhielm was allowed time to think.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘Assisting the authorities in a murder investigation concerning two of our brothers must be given priority. Come over here, Hjelm.’

  Hjelm looked at the screen over Clöfwenhielm’s shoulder.

  ‘As you can see, I’m scrolling through the names relatively quickly so that you won’t be tempted to memorise too many of them. Sometimes you’ll notice an asterisk flashing past in front of a name. There’s one in front of both the ones you mentioned. Here we have Daggfeldt, and here’s Strand-Julén. An asterisk next to each. There are ten of them altogether. You can sit down again, Hjelm.’

  Hjelm did as he was told. He felt like a schoolboy. All the elevations in title had apparently collapsed.

  ‘The asterisk indicates, to put it simply, that they’re no longer members of the Order of Mimir.’

  ‘Do you mean that they’ve forgotten to pay their annual dues?’

  Once again the Guardian uttered an ear-splitting bellow of laughter. ‘This is a fraternal order, my boy, not a country club. No, I put the asterisk there myself for quite another reason. The men in question have chosen to establish a subgroup within the Order of Mimir, the so-called Order of Skidbladnir. In lay terms, their group functions as a subsidiary, independent, but at the same time always answerable to the parent company. They wanted to develop certain ritualistic ideas that were not found acceptable by the Order of Mimir, meaning by me, but they didn’t want to leave entirely. And let me emphasise that there was no real conflict behind the formation of the Order of Skidbladnir.’

  ‘No grumbling in the corridors?’

  ‘There are no corridors here, nor any grumbling. Any antagonisms that have arisen have been on a more personal level, and as I mentioned, that sort of thing doesn’t interest me.’

  ‘Do you recall who or what was the driving force behind the secession?’

  ‘When the matter was presented to me, and this was about six months ago, we were all wearing our masks after an intense ceremony here. I have no idea who or what prompted the whole thing. But I accepted their proposal; I’m not running a reformatory here, you know. The administrative arrangements seemed quite acceptable. But I was expecting to receive certain reports regarding their progress, et cetera, and so far nothing has been forthcoming.’

  ‘What are the differences between the Order of Mimir and the Order of Skidbladnir? What did the other men want to develop?’

  ‘You won’t be able to entice me any further into our secret domains, officer. It’s a matter of specific details in the rituals. Nothing radical. A desire to develop certain ceremonial aspects a bit further.’

  ‘I’m sure you’d be willing to give me a list of the names with an asterisk,’ said Hjelm, aware that he’d now been drastically demoted to the rank of officer.

  Two taps of the keys, a rustling sound under cheese bell number two, and then David Clöfwenhielm, Guardian of the Order of Mimir, lifted off the lid and let a microscopic inkjet printer pump out two pages of A4 paper.

  ‘I assume that the same tact and finesse that you have demonstrated here today, Hjelm, will be shown regarding these pages. I would be very upset to hear that the media had got hold of them.’

  ‘I would too,’ said Hjelm.

  They both stood and shook hands.

  ‘I’d like to thank you for all your help, Guardian,’ said Hjelm. ‘Just one little question. What is it that this organisation actually does?’

  ‘Does?’ said Clöfwenhielm in surprise. Then he really let loose.

  The periodic bursts of laughter moved like shock waves, seeming to propel Hjelm up the stairs and out onto Stallgränd.

  * * *

  April weather, thought Hjelm, peering through the rain trickling down the windows of the café. As capricious as fate. Occasionally someone crossed Västerlånggatan with the collar of his coat or jacket turned up, dashing along the wall of the building, vainly seeking shelter under balconies that didn’t exist. The rain lashed against the big windows of Café Gråmunken, and light was noticeably absent. He squinted his eyes, staring at the Order of Mimir printouts. A flash of lightning abruptly lit up the café, leaving behind a lavender light that blocked his vision for a moment.

  ‘Shit. Thanks a lot,’ said Hjelm to the lightning.

  ‘Shit yourself, and here you are,’ said the girl with the white apron as she poured him another cup of coffee. He looked up at her in surprise. She was nothing but a lavender silhouette.

  When his vision returned to normal, he went back to skimming the list. It included the home and business addresses of all the brothers in the strange separatist faction called the Order of Skidbladnir. He found two addresses in Gamla Stan: one residential address on Prästgatan, and one business address. Since it was only a few minutes past noon, he chose the work address, a computer company on Österlånggatan. Not waiting for the rain to let up, he gulped down the rest of his coffee and rushed out.

  When he found the address, he pressed the intercom for ComData. A secretary answered, then reluctantly buzzed him in. He walked up two flights of stairs and entered a five-room apartment that had been converted for office use. The secretary was a woman with too much make-up, her hair pulled into a bun. When he showed her his ID, it dripped rain onto her neatly stacked papers, curling the edges.

  ‘Put that away,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Criminal Police. I want to talk to Axel Strandelius.’

  ‘The director is unavailable at the moment. I assume that you don’t have an appointment?’

  ‘You have thirty seconds to tell him that I’m here. After that I’ll just barge in on my own.’

  It had worked earlier in the day, and it worked now. A door opened, and an impeccably dressed man in his fifties whose demeanour practically screamed ‘CEO’ showed Hjelm into his office without a word.

  ‘Sara said you’re from the police,’ the man said as he sat down behind the desk. ‘How can I be of service?’

  ‘Are you Axel Strandelius?’ asked Hjelm.

  ‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘that’s precisely who I am.’

  ‘Are you a member of the group known as the Order of Skidbladnir?’

  Strandelius was silent for a moment. ‘Now we’re touching on proprietary information.’

  Hjelm recognised his choice of words. ‘I know the rules. The only proprietary information has to do with the rituals. Membership is public information.’

  ‘Except that the group in question is not yet public.’

  ‘You know why I’m here. I see there a copy of Dagens Nyheter, over there Svenska Dagbladet and here Dagens Industri. All three have the story on the front page. This isn’t some kind of game or police harassment; it’s a matter of life and death. Your life and your death. Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén were part of the little separatist group that about six months ago broke away from the Order of Mimir. That means that you too are at risk.’

  Strandelius clearly hadn’t thought that far and shrank a couple of inches in his chair. ‘Good God. But the Order of Mimir is the most innocuous organisation you could imagine. There couldn’t possibly be anyone who—’

  ‘The strongest link we have between the two men who were murdered two days apart and in the exact same way is
this little Order of Skidbladnir. Both of them belonged to the group, which has a total membership of twelve. Or had. That goes a long way in my book. There are two questions I want you to answer. One: What were the driving forces behind the secession? Two: Which members were most fiercely opposed to the secession?’

  Strandelius paused to think. He was a data guy. He spent a couple of minutes organising and analysing. When he replied, he used the enumeration that Hjelm had used.

  ‘One: Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén were the driving forces, but the idea actually came from Rickard Franzén. He was probably also the strongest advocate in getting the idea pushed through. At about the same level as Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén was Johannes Norrvik. First and foremost Franzén, then Daggfeldt, Strand-Julén and Norrvik. The rest of us just thought it sounded exciting and joined in. Two: I’m afraid I can’t help you much in that area. There was a general undercurrent of opposition, which the otherworldly Clöfwenhielm never even noticed. But I think it was Franzén who took the brunt of it. He would at least know who most opposed the whole idea. If, and I say if, this has something to do with the murders, then Franzén would most likely be the next victim.’

  ‘Very nicely summarised,’ said Hjelm and then said goodbye.

  The rain was now gone. It didn’t just seem to be gone; it was in fact gone. The violent spring weather had sculpted whitecaps on the surface of Saltsjön.

  April weather, thought Hjelm.

  He was stopped at the red light up near Södermalmstorg, looking across Slussen towards the shape of the Gondolen Restaurant hovering overhead, more like a subway car on the rack rather than an actual gondola.

  The hanging gardens of Babylon, thought Paul Hjelm as the light changed to green.

  He moved into the left lane, no doubt unable to avoid the red light at the next intersection, and turned onto Timmermansgatan.

  The locked door had a number code. Annoyed, he punched in a bunch of random numbers. He stood there for two minutes, pressing hundreds of made-up codes. Nothing happened. He took a step back and found himself standing next to a young girl with straggly black hair wearing a leather jacket. She gave him a suspicious look.