‘Can you turn that thing off?’
‘Of course,’ he says, but now he’s wary. ‘But why?’
‘Because I want to say that I need to have sex now, and I don’t want it to end up on tape.’
This makes Heber laugh.
‘I’ll cut that bit out,’ he says.
The clip ends.
‘The next clip is the last one, and it’s short,’ Birck says. ‘But it could be the most important of the lot. If she’s actually telling the truth, that is. I think it’s some time in early December.’
Birck’s phone buzzes. He reads the text.
‘Fuck.’
‘What is it?’
‘We’ll do this later. Soon.’
They’re outdoors, in central Stockholm. The sound of the city almost tells you how low the sky is hanging, how thick the air is. Cars rumble past. It’s daytime, one rush hour or the other, either early morning or late afternoon.
There’s the sound of rustling and crackling, and only when a thick rug seems to have been placed over all the sound do you realise that Heber’s put the Dictaphone in his coat. The snow crunches under his boots as he moves.
Another set of footsteps emerges from the background hum, growing in intensity, crunching just like Heber’s. It’s Lisa Swedberg.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi.’
‘Have you got a fag?’
‘No, ‘fraid not.’
‘Shit. I’m all out.’
‘We’ll go and buy some in a bit, okay?’
‘I’m … we shouldn’t really be meeting like this.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have … I’ve been asking around, since we met last time, about what we talked about, and I think that some people think I’ve been a bit too curious, nosy. At times I’ve felt like I was being followed. It’s not good for your research, what with all the confidentiality and all that, if we’re seen together.’
‘Are you thinking about my research?’
‘What else would it be?’
‘Your own safety, for example.’ Heber sounds genuinely worried now. He lowers his voice. ‘Have you found out something else?’
‘I might have done,’ she says.
‘But this thing is still on? That they’re going to … that something’s going to happen?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘But who? You know who the target is?’
Silence.
‘Can you say it? The name?’
A pedestrian crossing switches to green, and the slow ticking is replaced by an intensive rattle. A car beeps.
‘Martin Antonsson.’
‘The guy who used to be in the Sweden Democrats?’
There’s no hint of surprise in Heber’s voice, no emotion whatsoever. He sounds very matter-of-fact.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I know someone you can talk to who can tell you more about this than I can.’
‘And who is that?’
‘I really need a cig.’
‘Lisa,’ Heber says, pleadingly, thereby saying her name for the first time.
‘Ebi Hakimi, RAF. Do you know who he is?’
‘No.’
‘Talk to him.’
‘But I …’
‘This might be the last time we see each other for a while,’ she says. ‘I’m getting scared. Your place isn’t safe anymore.’
There’s that crackling, scraping sound again. Heber puts his hand in his pocket. The clip ends. It’s the last time we hear his voice.
‘Martin Antonsson,’ I say.
‘The very same.’
I’ll be damned. Martin Antonsson is a notorious former member of the Sweden Democrats. He was active in Stockholm City Council, and had an alleged background in Keep Sweden Swedish and similarly alleged connections to the old National Socialist Front. When the Sweden Democrats started polishing their image and becoming socially acceptable, Martin Antonsson was one of those who was pushed out. There was a bit about him in the press then, and his name still turns up when active Sweden Democrats’ murkier links are revealed. No one knows what he’s up to now, except that he’s somewhere on the fringes of the extreme right, causing mayhem.
Martin Antonsson. I’ll be damned.
‘Why do they want him?’
‘No idea,’ says Birck. ‘It might not even be true. When we spoke to Swedberg yesterday, she told us she was no longer sure it was true. But my guess is that Antonsson is up to something we know nothing about. I did a rather dubious, in operational terms, background check on him — I googled him on my phone because I didn’t want it to be registered at HQ, considering, well … you know.
‘Considering we’re not to stick our noses in?’
‘Exactly. But I found nothing, apart from the fact that he’s on good terms with Jens Malm, the national leader of Swedish Resistance.’
‘He might be supporting them financially,’ I say. ‘If it’s not about ideology, it’s about money. That’s nearly always the way.’
‘I think in this case it might be about both,’ Birck replies. ‘Antonsson lives in a big house out in Stocksund. I rolled past there this morning, and spotted two unmarked cars in the vicinity, as well as a patrol car outside the entrance. I recognised one of the cars, WHO 327.’
The Security Police — SEPO. So Goffman and his stooges already know about this.
‘Ebi Hakimi,’ I say instead. ‘The guy who was shot in the eye.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘He’s in the field notes,’ I say. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘As “H”,’ says Birck. ‘I’m pretty convinced myself.’
The cogs are moving. Ebi Hakimi, or ‘H’ in Heber’s notes — it must be him. Lisa Swedberg asks Heber to contact Hakimi, to find out more about the threat to Martin Antonsson. Heber tracks down Hakimi, finds him at Café Cairo, and tells him about Antonsson. Heber can tell that Hakimi knows what he’s talking about. Then Heber asks about the other thing, too, whatever or whoever that is, which he’s heard about from 1601. Exactly what happens next isn’t clear, but Hakimi seems unsettled, and he leaves Cairo in a hurry.
‘We need to talk to her again.’
‘Well, yes.’ Birck doesn’t seem convinced. He puts his hand on the steering wheel, and starts drumming with his fingers. ‘I think Olausson was right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m guessing SEPO have been ahead of us the whole time. They’ve known more than we have. And this is, as it should be, their case, not ours. We have neither the experience nor the intelligence material necessary to handle the case.’
‘You mean we should hand over what we’ve got?’
‘What little we’ve got, yes. We can hardly get stick for this — Swedberg came to us. I think we should go to them, once we’ve spoken to Swedberg again. We’re not the only ones who want to solve the case, and there are people in much better positions than us to do so. Those who are formally responsible, for example.’
I concede, reluctantly, that Birck’s right.
‘We need to get Swedberg to talk to SEPO.’
‘That’s right,’ Birck says. ‘She obviously already had some contact with Goffman.’
‘That’s what I don’t get. Why she didn’t agree to talk to them when they came to her.’
‘There might be an explanation,’ Birck says, distracted. ‘But there is one more thing.’
‘Okay?’
‘Ebi Hakimi: twenty-two years old, Persian heritage, registered residence out in Husby. His is the only name at that address. Member of Radical Anti-Fascism for the past three years while studying politics, sociology, and economic history at the university. Suspected of criminal damage, civil disobed
ience, and possessing an offensive weapon, in the form of a knife. This was all on the same charge sheet, from a demonstration in Salem three years ago, almost to the day. And then I’ve made a little entry here.’ Birck waves the Dictaphone. ‘When I visited Ebi Hakimi at the hospital this morning. I was down there like a shot as soon as I heard this. Fuck me, what a state he was in. I asked one of the nurses if he’d been conscious at all since they’d brought him in yesterday, but he hadn’t been. They operated to remove the bullet, and he was in post-op when I got there, so I just sat there and waited. After two hours, give or take, I got this.’
Birck clicks the file, which starts playing.
There’s buzzing in the background, and a monotonous, relentless bleeping from one of the machines. Birck sounds gentle but determined, direct — the kind of voice you’d use if you knew you were only going to get one chance.
‘Who killed Thomas Heber?’
‘…’
‘Who killed Thomas Heber?’
The voice that answers is weak and slurred, wheezing out the vowels. It’s almost impossible to make out what he’s saying.
‘Sweetest sisters.’
‘Who’s going to die next?’ Birck continues, without hesitation or contemplation of the previous answer, as though he were reading out questions that someone else had written.
‘Es … ther.’
‘Then he disappeared again,’ Birck says.
‘Can you play that again?’
‘Who killed Thomas Heber?’
‘…’
‘Who killed Thomas Heber?’
‘Sweetest sisters.’
‘Who’s going to die next?’
‘Es … ther.’
‘What’s he saying?’ I ask. ‘Sweetest sisters and Esther? What the hell is that second one?’
‘We’ll have to make sure SEPO check the names, if indeed they are names. They might not mean anything at all, but we don’t have anything else to go on.’
‘Well, he doesn’t say Antonsson anyway.’
‘No, he doesn’t, which bothers me a bit, not least because Swedberg expressed some doubt about whether or not it was true. Time will tell, I should think. I spoke to a nurse,’ he continues, ‘who was furious that I didn’t tell them as soon as he seemed to be waking up. Once she had calmed down a bit, I managed to get her to promise to contact me if there was any change in his condition.’
He fiddles with his phone.
‘And?’ I say.
‘I’ve just been informed that he died two hours ago.’
The water closest to the quayside has frozen. It’s snowing; large snowflakes tumble from the sky.
I think about his last words. Sweetest sisters. Esther. I wonder what Heber’s last words were. Maybe he said something to a stranger on the way to his rendezvous with Swedberg, perhaps on the underground. Maybe he said no; maybe he gave a beggar some change. Or maybe he didn’t say anything.
Maybe there are no last words.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot about each other. ‘The People’s Home’, as the Social Democrats’ great project was widely known, became The Home of The People — the Swedes. Xenophobia is at record levels. Maybe that’s why someone dared to write SWEDEN FOR THE SWEDES on a wall in Bandhagen, and why no one has bothered to wash it off. Whoever’s in charge of getting rid of graffiti might agree with the message. No one knows what anyone else believes in anymore, or who anyone actually likes.
The address that Lisa Swedberg had mentioned before disappearing in such a hurry is a four-storey brick-built apartment building. The façade is probably intended to be beige, but against the white snow it just looks yellowish and dirty.
A black Volvo, registration ME 737, is parked outside the address. On its roof, a lone blue light is spinning and flashing. In front of the Volvo is a blue-and-white patrol car with its doors open, like the wings of a bird. The main door to the building is propped open, and through it emerge Dan Larsson and Per Leifby. One is reading something in his notebook, while the other is sucking sugary soft drink through a straw.
‘Fuck.’
Not really knowing what he’s referring to, I get out of the car and start following him. Birck raises his voice, which makes Larsson look up from his pad.
‘She’s lying up there,’ Larsson says in a coarse, nasal, southern dialect.
‘Who.’
‘A Swedberg, Lisa,’ Larsson reads from his notebook. ‘According to her ID she was born …’
‘Is she still alive?’
Leifby releases the straw and looks at us with his mouth half-open.
‘I very much doubt it.’
‘And what are you doing down here?’
‘A man in a suit said he was going to take care of it,’ Larsson replies. ‘We’re going to cordon off.’
‘A man in a suit?’ Birck repeats.
‘Yes?’ Leifby sucks on his straw again. It makes a burbling, slurping sound. ‘That is correct. He is wearing a suit.’
‘And that was sufficient for you to leave the crime scene?’
‘It’s the Security Police,’ Larsson says, wide-eyed.
‘Cordon it off,’ Birck mutters, and walks past them.
We take our shoes off in the stairwell. The flat is on the second floor and, according to the door, someone by the name of Lundin lives here. The hall is small, and you feel a stabbing sensation at about chest height when you see Lisa Swedberg’s dark-red boots in the row of shoes by the door. The stench of the corpse is unmistakable.
‘It must have happened yesterday,’ I say.
‘Shoe prints right the way down the hall,’ Birck says as he carefully makes his way towards the threshold of the living room. ‘Be careful.’
On the left is a bathroom, then the kitchenette, with unwashed plates and glasses on the worktop. Straight ahead are two more rooms, of equal size. One is a bedroom; the other, the living room, which is dominated by a three-piece suite, a TV, and a dark-brown bookcase. The ceiling is pretty low, and the lino on the floor is discoloured by time and nicotine.
A pillow and a duvet are lying on the sofa. Someone has been sleeping there. On the floor, between the coffee table and the bookcase, Lisa Swedberg is lying on her back. She’s wearing a vest-top with no bra, a pair of black, loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms, and thick socks. Her eyes are closed. Her top is stained red by blood, and between her breasts are three bullet holes.
Crouching down beside her is a man I recognise.
‘The man with the very uncomfortable chair,’ Goffman says, getting to his feet. ‘Excuse my being so blunt, but what the hell are you doing here?’
Birck explains the facts behind our presence here. Yet, by the end of it, Goffman appears none the wiser. He turns his head, looking for something, as though he might have forgotten where he put his hat.
‘When did the call come in?’ Birck asks.
‘Fifteen minutes ago. The postman came, and thought it smelt a bit funny in the stairwell. The landlady is a paranoid little witch, so she called the police. Larsson and Leifby decided that they could make the effort, and come and have a look — whatever it was they were doing here. Aren’t they based in Huddinge?’
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘So it was Larsson and Leifby who found her?’
‘Correct,’ Goffman says, as he bends his long, pale fingers, and puts his hands in his trouser pockets.
‘Shot,’ Birck says. ‘Three rounds.’
‘It does rather look that way, doesn’t it?’ Goffman walks a wide arc around the body, and his presence is striking. As he moves around, it’s as though the room is moving with him. ‘Three hits, anyway. We’ll have to check the flat for any misses.’ He takes his right hand out of his pocket, forms his fingers around an imaginary pistol. ‘One, two, three, in the chest.’ His stare drops to the floor. ‘I think he must have b
een standing about here,’ he mumbles.
‘The shoe-prints stop at the doorway,’ says Birck.
‘Ah-ha. Of course. And with a revolver, right? No cartridges, as far as I can see.’
‘The assailant might have taken them with him,’ I say.
‘True. But in that case he must have had plenty of time — something that people who’ve just killed someone don’t tend to have.’
‘She never had a chance.’
‘Dying people rarely do.’
‘Someone must have heard something,’ I say. ‘Someone in the building.’
‘Yes,’ says Goffman. He pulls his phone from his blazer pocket. ‘Maybe they did. The forensic technician is on the way.’
‘Get Markström and Hall down here,’ says Birck.
‘They’re City officers, aren’t they?’
‘They’re the best door-knockers I know. And they’re on duty.’
Goffman puts the phone to his ear. When someone answers, Goffman introduces himself as David Sandström, Southern Districts Police.
‘Fucking hell,’ Birck says quietly.
‘Did she live here?’ I say.
‘She did say she was always moving around.’ Birck says. ‘Before you got there yesterday, when we were chatting. And that she hasn’t had a proper home for a couple of years. She stayed here a bit with the girl who lives here, Annelie Lundin. Apparently she’s away, gone travelling in the Far East. We’ll have to check that, but I’m sure it’s right. Then she had a friend on Döbelnsgatan — she used to stay there sometimes. I did a quick search on Swedberg, but didn’t find anything. Her parents live in Södertälje. That’s where she’s from.
‘What about her criminal record?’
‘Nothing interesting. Little things — vandalism, breach of the peace, that sort of thing. The worst thing I could find was threatening behaviour, against someone from the Party of the Swedes.’
While Birck is talking, Goffman is walking around the flat, muttering to himself, looking for something. Exactly what it is isn’t clear, since he doesn’t manage to finish any of his sentences.
‘Whoever did this,’ I say, ‘must have been let in. She must have been at home, someone knocked on the door, and she opened it. That means she must have known who he was.’
The Falling Detective Page 17
