Europa Blues

by Arne Dahl

  ‘Mm, I don’t know,’ said Jadwiga, pointing at the screen. ‘Something like that. Eyes more slanted, maybe.’

  ‘Viggo,’ Sara said, a certain weariness in her voice. ‘There’s no reason to be filming this.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ an unmistakable male voice replied as the camera panned over the desk and focused on Jadwiga, who made an irritated, obscene gesture to it.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Sara said, even more wearily.

  ‘Looks like Magdalena Forsberg,’ the policeman in uniform said, looking with disappointment at the computer screen.

  Jadwiga, on the other hand, suddenly looked jittery.

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ the unmistakable male voice said. ‘No one thinks you’ve drawn the world’s best female biathlete.’

  Jadwiga got to her feet. The camera followed her.

  ‘That’s it!’ she exclaimed.

  Sara Svenhagen appeared next to her and said: ‘What do you mean, Jadwiga?’

  ‘The name,’ the young Polish woman said. ‘The one they had to contact.’

  ‘Magdalena Forsberg?’ the unmistakable man’s voice said.

  ‘Magda,’ said Jadwiga.

  That was followed by a clip in which they could see something like the edge of a car-repair garage. A man with a moustache and a Shell cap was standing in front of a number of more or less broken-down buses, wiping his oily hands. He was looking suspiciously straight into the camera.

  ‘What’s this then?’ he asked in a broad Småland accent. ‘Are you German? Sie können hier nicht fotografieren.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Sara’s voice said. Her hand, clutching her police ID, entered the picture from one side. ‘Is this Anderstorp Car & Bus?’

  ‘Yeah. Turn that camera off. Don’t you need permission for that kind of thing?’

  ‘He’s got a point there,’ Jan-Olov Hultin said loudly.

  ‘Shh,’ Sara urged him, as her voice double on-screen asked: ‘Are you Anders Torp?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man with the moustache said, still suspicious but now with an obvious pride in his voice. ‘Anders Torp of Anderstorp.’

  ‘You rent out buses?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anders Torp in Anderstorp. ‘From time to time.’

  ‘Did you rent a bus with this registration number?’

  A notepad moved into shot. Anders Torp looked at it and then nodded.

  ‘An old Volvo, one of the smaller models,’ he said. ‘They hired it for a month. Must’ve been a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ an unmistakable man’s voice said.

  ‘Is he with the police too?’ Anders Torp asked, pointing straight down the camera. ‘I’m really wondering whether you can film like this without permission. Maybe I shouldn’t answer any more questions.’

  ‘If you’ve got anything to hide then I suggest you do it,’ said Sara.

  ‘Model behaviour,’ said Hultin.

  ‘Shh,’ Sara retorted.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ Anders Torp said, offended.

  ‘Då fortsätter vi resan,’ said Sara. ‘As they say in “Yellow Submarine”.’

  ‘You heard the Swedish part too?’ Anders Torp said, beaming. ‘In the middle somewhere, where it goes a bit chaotic for a while? The Eagles had their backwards message, the Beatles threw in a line in Swedish. It’s great.’

  ‘Who hired the bus?’ Sara asked bluntly.

  Anders Torp looked appreciatively at her. She had clearly broken through his mistrust.

  ‘A girl,’ he said. ‘Not Swedish.’

  ‘Where was she from? Eastern Europe?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have rented it to her if she was. You know you won’t be getting the bus back.’

  ‘She must’ve shown you her driving licence.’

  ‘And passport,’ said Anders Torp. ‘You have to, if you’re a foreigner. I think she was German. I can check.’

  He disappeared for a moment. The camera turned to Sara. The unmistakable man’s voice said: ‘Yellow Submarine?’

  Sara pointed to the wall of the garage. The camera zoomed in on a tattered old poster covered in psychedelic patterns. The words ‘Beatles’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’ came into view. Then the camera moved back to Sara.

  ‘Clever,’ the unmistakable male voice said.

  ‘Yup,’ Sara replied, looking pleased.

  Anders Torp of Anderstorp returned. He was carrying a piece of paper. It was fluttering in the late-spring breeze.

  ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to the messy sheet of paper. ‘Driving licence and passport numbers.’

  Sara nodded and said: ‘We’ll make a copy of it later. Was she one of these?’

  She held up the sheet of photographs. Anders Torp slowly worked his way through the nine photographs. He shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Sara held out two more photographs, slightly larger.

  Anders Torp glanced at the first of them. Then he moved on to the second and his face lit up just like it had when she mentioned ‘Yellow Submarine’.

  ‘This one’s very like her,’ he said, nodding.

  Sara Svenhagen held a thumb up to the camera. The camera lurched and fell to the floor. They watched the sun slip in behind a cloud before the picture vanished into static.

  There was a moment of silence before Jan-Olov Hultin said: ‘I’m not sure that video is a particularly good instrument when it comes to police investigations …’

  Sara Svenhagen made a thumbs-up gesture to Viggo Norlander. He happily returned the gesture. This time, though, there was no camera to drop.

  It was utterly clear he thought he had made an invaluable contribution.

  Then Sara said: ‘So in other words, we might have a name for our so-called ninja feminist. Magda.’

  ‘Plus,’ said Norlander, ‘we’ve got these.’

  He held up three photographs like a fan. One was a proper photograph – the picture from the environmental protection agency film, cleaned up by the technicians, showing the woman with the mobile phone. It was followed by two obvious composite photographs, computer reconstructions.

  ‘These two,’ Viggo said, ‘were made by a stout Karlskrona policeman, working with Jadwiga, the Polish waitress from the M/S Stena Europe.’ He put one of them down, holding the other up in the air.

  ‘Anders Torp from Anderstorp rented a bus to this woman. We should probably assume she’s the Erinyes’ driver.’

  ‘Her passport and driving licence were German,’ said Sara. ‘But there’s absolutely no doubt they were fake. Can you guess the name she was using?’

  ‘No,’ came the chorus.

  ‘Eva Braun,’ said Sara Svenhagen.

  ‘Unfortunately the camera had broken by the time Anders Torp said that,’ Viggo Norlander said in his unmistakable man’s voice.

  ‘Poor quality,’ Jan-Olov Hultin said neutrally.

  The phone suddenly rang. Hultin answered.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yeah … yes … What do you mean, hard? … Ah … OK … Good. Thanks.’

  He hung up and said: ‘That was Brynolf Svenhagen. He was agitated.’

  ‘Uff,’ Jorge Chavez said, staring at his watch. Being able to go and buy his wine was looking increasingly unlikely.

  Hultin said: ‘We’ve got some information about our man without a nose.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Brunte?’ Paul Hjelm asked, receiving a sour glance from Sara Svenhagen in return.

  ‘It’s because the information we’ve got is fairly diffuse. They’re claiming they don’t have a cooperation agreement with Europol and they’re refusing to release the name. They’re demanding we send someone down there.’

  ‘Send someone down there?’ said Chavez. ‘Haven’t they heard of the Internet?’

  ‘Barely, I should think,’ Hultin replied, picking up the phone.

  ‘You’re not thinking of sending someone, are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hultin said, dialling an extremely long number. ‘We’ve already got someone on the gro
und in Europe. Arto can go after the weekend.’

  ‘But where’s there?’ asked Hjelm. ‘Where’s our nose-man from?’

  ‘That’s why I’m going along with it without complaining,’ said Jan-Olov Hultin. ‘Shtayf was from Odessa. Ukraine.’

  30

  IT WAS SATURDAY evening in Tuscany. The Söderstedt family were on their veranda, the sun slowly sinking in the distance. Its blushing rays fell among the rows of vines, painting the hills with stripes of golden light. The scent of seventeen different varieties of basil was drifting in from the garden, and the lingering warmth of the day was making the pine-scented evening air quiver slightly in the dusk. The remaining morsels of Anja’s fantastic special pesto, made from her latest green-fingered triumph, a dark opal basil, were being eaten. It was perfect in combination with a full-bodied Brunello.

  Everything – absolutely everything – was just great.

  Arto Söderstedt glanced around the table. There was a dark-haired addition to the chalk-white family. The dark hair belonged to Giorgio, the seventeen-year-old son of a winemaker who had taken his eldest daughter’s virginity. Mikaela had brought him home one day and introduced him to the family. Arto Söderstedt had thought that was something momentous; it felt like he was being thanked for managing to convince her that she had nothing to be ashamed of. Hopefully, that insight would follow her through life.

  In his opinion, people should feel shame only when they did something bad to another person.

  Then and only then.

  Giorgio was a shy young man, living in the belief that his lover’s father was, by definition, furious. That it was his duty to be furious. But not even Giorgio’s own father seemed particularly angry. They had invited the winemaker and his wife over one evening. Both had seemed nervous, as though standing trial. These were the people whose daughter their good-for-nothing son had penetrated. And so the Söderstedts had mobilised their combined good natures to convince them that everything was fine, and slowly, slowly, the boy’s parents had relaxed. The evening had ended with each of them attempting to surpass the others in their extolment of love and wine and life.

  Someone at this table is pregnant.

  Thud – the thought suddenly struck Söderstedt.

  There was something in the air. That particularly female, utterly silent telepathy sending thoughts right over the table. He had experienced it before. Five times, to be exact. That made him an expert.

  His eyes came to rest on Linda first, his second eldest daughter. She was fourteen. There didn’t seem to be any danger there. She was busy wolfing down pasta and glancing wryly around, just like normal. Incredibly interested in Giorgio, above all else. With a smile, he wondered to himself what she was thinking. Where her thoughts were taking her.

  Then came the critical moment. He gathered his courage and turned to Mikaela. She was shining. But it was the light of love, nothing else, he was quite convinced of that.

  OK, he thought, taking a breather. So I was wrong. I thought I would never be picking children up from day care again, but that isn’t to be. Within a couple of years, I’ll be picking up yet another baby from day care.

  He turned to Anja, sitting there proudly tasting her dark opal pesto. She was glowing.

  There was, after all, a difference between shining and glowing. A huge difference.

  ‘So you’re pregnant, are you?’ he asked, taking another sip of wine.

  Anja choked on her pesto. He had to get up, rush round the table and put the good old Heimlich manoeuvre into practice. He grabbed her beneath her breasts and squeezed. A huge lump of pesto flew across the table. Giorgio pulled a face. Mikaela was flame-red with embarrassment. She wasn’t done learning yet.

  Anja dried her tears with a napkin, which she then used to wipe the pesto from the table. Her face was completely expressionless. She sat down and stared out at the dusky landscape. Arto sat down too. He watched her, waiting for the telepathic waves to return.

  Giorgio was looking sceptically at his half-eaten portion of pesto.

  ‘You don’t have to eat it,’ Anja said, without moving her eyes.

  The telepathic waves were absent when Mikaela and Giorgio snuck away from the table to slander the adult world in intimate tones; they were absent when Linda and Peter ran off to creep around in the deepening darkness, frightening the daylights out of one another; they were absent when Stefan took little Lina’s hand and dragged her away to watch Italian kids’ TV.

  But once husband and wife were left alone on the veranda, once darkness had fallen, once the fireflies had appeared, flashing like sparks in the night, the telepathic waves returned. Anja’s distant gaze finally vanished and she met his stubbornly penetrating eyes. She sat there for a few seconds, watching her strange husband. Then she shook her head quickly, smiled and disappeared indoors.

  Yes, there would be a new baby; there would always be a baby.

  He moved over to his particular corner of the veranda and turned on the computer. It rattled and whirred. He lived in constant fear that it would be struck by an information overload and just die completely. All these CD-ROMs being fed into it, all the information spread across its hard drive – where was the limit of what it could withstand?

  Arto Söderstedt opened the sketch of Palazzo Riguardo which Commissioner Marconi had, slightly reluctantly, given to him. In addition to that, the good commissioner had, even more reluctantly, pointed out the critical spots of the thirty-four-room building. After that, he had stood with his hands on his hips and said: ‘I should probably know why you want this, Signor Sadestatt.’

  Signor Sadestatt had replied: ‘What’s the best way in?’

  Naturally, Signor Marconi’s jaw had dropped. Anything else would have been unthinkable.

  Söderstedt had explained: ‘Not for me, for the Erinyes.’

  Marconi had looked at him. His jaw moved back to its usual position – and with it, his gaze.

  ‘They can’t get at him anywhere other than at home,’ Söderstedt had continued. ‘He hasn’t left his palazzo in … what did you say? A year?’

  Marconi had nodded, mute but not indifferent.

  ‘And that means they’ve got to get into Palazzo Riguardo if they want to get to him.’

  ‘And you’re quite sure that these … Erinyes are out for him?’

  ‘I’m feeling increasingly certain of that, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the whole thing with the wolverines was so wonderfully clear. Because there’s some sort of direct link between Leonard Sheinkman in Stockholm and Marco di Spinelli in Milan. Because the combination of wolverine and old man points straight to Palazzo Riguardo. Because di Spinelli is the spider in the middle of the web. All points lead to him, and all points lead from him. He’s weaved the web that’s going to end up snaring him. He’s created the figures who are going to eat him up.’

  ‘That sounds quite convincing,’ Marconi had said encouragingly before throwing a spanner into Söderstedt’s neatly oiled machine. ‘But is there really a single tenable link between Sheinkman and di Spinelli?’

  ‘He recognised him.’

  ‘According to you, yes. But all that’s based on a hunch. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t Sheinkman be the victim and di Spinelli the hangman? Why murder both the victim and the executioner?’

  ‘Nothing is pointing to di Spinelli as the hangman. They might just be brothers in misfortune.’

  ‘Marco di Spinelli, a prisoner in Buchenwald? You’re kidding.’

  ‘Your words, Signor Marconi, suggest that you’re of the opposite impression, despite all your earlier neutrality.’

  ‘Look at Marco di Spinelli, Signor Sadestatt. Does he look like a man plagued by his past in a concentration camp, degraded by the Nazis as they murdered people on an industrial scale? Does he look like a man who now, after fifty years, still needs pills to be able to sleep just an hour a night? Does he look like a man who has been subjected to the most awful of medical experiments?’ />
  Arto Söderstedt had actually been forced to pause for thought there. For an instant, the distinguished commissioner, usually such a marvel of self-restraint, had revealed the basis of his obstinacy.

  It was personal.

  In one way or another, it was personal.

  ‘Your father?’ Söderstedt had asked rashly.

  ‘My entire upbringing,’ Marconi had replied, fixing him with his gaze. ‘My entire childhood in a nutshell. They can’t sleep. They can never sleep.’

  Söderstedt had been silent. He had waited for Marconi, who continued with a composed but trembling voice.

  ‘Buchenwald was Nazi Germany’s biggest concentration camp. Towards the end of the war, there were practically only non-German prisoners there. The German Jews, those who hadn’t been subjected to medical experiments, had already been shipped off to the extermination camps in Poland, and Buchenwald was becoming more and more a camp for foreign prisoners. My father was an Italian Communist. The Nazis, they were studying the movement of blood through muscle mass by watching it … live. Dissection of living right arms. Without anaesthetic, of course. He lived with that dissected, rotting arm hanging at his side for almost a year before units from the 3rd US Army reached Buchenwald on the eleventh of April 1945 and opened the gates.’

  Arto Söderstedt had observed him. It was hard to digest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he had said meaninglessly.

  ‘Me too,’ Marconi had replied, fiddling with various papers on his desk. ‘And so my experience tells me Marco di Spinelli was never held prisoner in a concentration camp. I’d bet my life on it.’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Söderstedt had said. ‘It was just an idea.’

  ‘Complete your line of reasoning anyway,’ Marconi had replied; he was back to his old self once again.

  ‘Someone who kills an eighty-eight-year-old concentration camp survivor by hanging him upside down and poking about in his brain with a metal wire is, by definition, a fascist. I think my colleagues in Stockholm assumed a bit too hastily that the Furies were out on some kind of mission. That they’re liberating women who’ve been subjected to violence. I think they actually seem quite fascistic. Even if they are women.’