Ten Swedes Must Die

by Martin Österdahl

  Max displayed no reaction.

  “I do not know Torbjörn Lindström, nor do I know why anyone would have wanted to murder him. But if he is dead, that is extremely bad news.”

  “Has anyone threatened you or Vektor?” asked Sofia.

  He tried to understand why she was asking this question. “No.”

  “Could you imagine the existence of any organization that would be opposed to what Vektor and Torbjörn were planning?”

  Max was struck by Sofia’s use of the word organization. Was she referring to Ivanovich? The splinter group from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence organization? The waking eagle that had turned away from the west and was represented in images with only one head, turned to the east? The group that had kidnapped Pashie four years ago? Had they come to Sweden? Was that where she was going with this?

  “I have no idea what organization there could be that would be opposed to a Swedish rescue mission in the Barents Sea,” he said.

  Sofia nodded, her brow furrowed. His answer didn’t seem to surprise her. She picked up the folder, slid her chair out, and stood up.

  “It may be entirely a coincidence,” she said, “that you of all people showed up in Berga today and that the murder we got Friday evening occurred in the remote corner of the country where you grew up. But if you again withhold information related to an investigation I’m working on, I’m not going to protect you.”

  26

  Pashie was already in bed when Max got back to the apartment. Sofia Karlsson’s last words were still ringing in his head. Both of the crime scenes she was investigating were connected to him. Was that just a coincidence?

  Max sat on the edge of the bed. He caressed Pashie’s shoulder while his thoughts drifted to Arholma.

  Every morning he’d run from his house in Österhamn, through the intersection at Hagas, on past the mill and the church, and down the hill again, past Bread-Ante’s house, down to Kasholmsundet on the other side of the island and into Båkbergsgården. Maj-Lis rowed her skiff across Björköfjärden every morning regardless of the weather. It was not until their last year together that she bought herself an outboard motor.

  Starbsnäs, where she lived, was very near Skeppsmyra, where the general-director of the Migration Agency had been found murdered and dismembered.

  Max realized he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, and he got out of bed. He switched on the lamp on the old desk in the library and sat down, looking at the piles of boxes stacked on the floor around him.

  An Estonian colony had been established in Starbsnäs with aid from both the Swedish government and the Baltic Foundation, the foundation that was now in Max’s hands. Sweden had provided Estonian refugees with dwellings. Most of these refugees were ethnic Swedes, who had lived along the western and northern coasts of the Estonian mainland and on islands such as Saaremaa, Suur-Pakri, and Ruhnu. Because of this, Sweden allowed them to live on the land they’d stepped onto as refugees, the land that reminded them most of the landscapes from which they’d fled, where they had been close to the open sea.

  Maj-Lis had called her home country Aiboland. Families of Swedish descent had been living there since the Middle Ages. Early in her life, she had decided she wanted to work as a schoolteacher. But when she was only nineteen years old, her life changed, and she fled across the sea under horrible circumstances and with catastrophic results.

  Max had not spoken with her since he’d gone away for his military service. She must be nearly seventy now. He couldn’t imagine she would ever leave Starbsnäs, which was close to the sea and to her family grave in Rumshamn. Not many people lived there now. Already, during Max’s last years on Arholma, the colony had been dissolved, and only Maj-Lis and a few others remained.

  If she still lived there, she might have seen something unusual during the days leading up to the auction. Perhaps she knew something? She wasn’t the kind of person who would contact the police on her own initiative. Out there, people minded their own business, particularly if they had her background. But if she had seen something, she would entrust her information to Max. And Max could pass it on to Sofia Karlsson.

  Could he call Maj-Lis this late? After so many years?

  Better late than never.

  His call went through, but no one answered.

  Rinkaby Internment Camp, Kristianstad, November 1945

  “How long have you had Nazi sympathies?” the policeman asked.

  “I’ve told you my situation several times now.”

  Ozols spread his arms in a gesture of resignation. The man in black sitting across from him at the fold-out table had his back against the bare concrete wall. The room looked the way all the others had. A windowless closet that had been turned into an interrogation room, with a construction lamp fixed to the ceiling that was much too bright and blinded Ozols every time he looked up.

  “But you fought for the Germans?”

  “No one else wanted to give us weapons. Not the British, not the Yankees. Not you!”

  “So that was why you joined the SS? To get weapons?”

  “I was eighteen years old. If your people must meet their downfall, it’s better to die with a weapon in your hand than to be murdered by a tyrant or waste away in Siberia.”

  “You can leave now.”

  Ozols’s shoulders relaxed a little when he left the room and entered the hallway of the barracks. His comrades were on their way to the bathroom, towels wrapped around their waists. Their young bodies were strong and fit. The work they were forced to do was hard. It was hardest in the fields of the sadistic farmer with big holdings outside Kristianstad during the hot summer months. It was next hardest when they were cutting peat or working in the lime kiln on Gotland. Now they were working in the forest, and that wasn’t quite as bad.

  Half a year in Swedish captivity had healed their war-worn bodies. They hadn’t been allowed to shave themselves since Lieutenant Tiruma had slit his wrists with a razor blade after hearing that his wife and children were alive and living in Germany. Now they really looked like prisoners of war, with their shaved heads and bushy beards. But not like prisoners from a civilized time—like prisoners from the Middle Ages. The barber was here again. His task was to shave off all hair to prevent the spreading of lice. Until now, only Ozols had also let him shave his chin and cheeks; as an act of protest, the others refused to let the barber take their beards because they weren’t allowed to shave themselves. But that was going to change now.

  We are strong men. The battle has not been lost yet.

  How long is this going to go on? thought Ozols. The sporadic interrogations by the black-clad police officers from Stockholm. The rumored discussions in corridors of power in the capital city. Our fates are being sealed, but no one gives us any information. Why are we being held as prisoners of war longer than anyone else?

  The war was over. Japan had surrendered almost three months ago. The Führer was dead. But Stalin was strong. He was the root of all evil, and the Western powers feared his third war, which could begin at any time. All the Swedes feared the Russian. From the government to the prison camp director to the men in black.

  The questions Ozols was asked were always the same. How could he have joined the Nazis? But they didn’t want to understand the answer. That it was possible to reason with the Germans, while the Bolsheviks killed everything that crossed their path. The Germans were the lesser of two evils. Nothing was worse than the Red Terror.

  One of the posters a special delivery service had brought from the Soviet embassy in Stockholm hung on the notice board in the hallway.

  “Citizens! Your fatherland welcomes you home with a guarantee that jobs will be provided for all. Representatives of the homeland’s delegation will visit Rinkaby on November 24.”

  Sure. Work for all of us. For the rest of our lives. In Siberia.

  Ozols ripped the poster off the board and crumpled it into a little ball. The men of the C-Bureau had censored their letters to their families. And now
this. Soviet propaganda. It wasn’t a good sign. Ever since he had arrived at Rinkaby, his countrymen had looked to him for advice. He had played the part of a mediator in some internal disagreements and acquired the role of leader of the Latvians. It was time for him to take initiative.

  The Swedes have already made their decision about us. We must organize our resistance.

  He threw the ball of paper in a wastebasket before walking to the showers. Thirty thousand Estonians, five thousand Latvians, a handful of Lithuanians who hadn’t managed to flee before the Russians had encircled them. The number of Germans was unknown, but no one cared about them. The Communist Party of Sweden wanted to deport them all, hand them over as a present to their friends who were ruling the Baltics on Moscow’s orders. Civilians as well as soldiers; no distinction was drawn. No other country had handed refugees from the Baltics over to the Soviets. But the Swedes and their Social Democratic government couldn’t be trusted.

  Angrily, he yanked off his clothes. In the shower room the steam created such a thick fog that the men could hardly see each other.

  “Gather round me,” he shouted into the room. “We only have a few minutes.”

  The others hurried over, knowing the camp director had forbidden them to speak their mother tongue. They were fourteen men in all; most of them had belonged to a panzer battalion in Courland that had been forced to surrender. They all had horrible stories to tell about their flight across the Baltic, but no one’s was worse than Normunds’s. Normunds was thin and weak, both in body and mind, after what he’d been subjected to. He came from the same part of the country as Ozols; the SS had recruited many young men from there. Normunds was the only survivor on a refugee boat that had been fired upon by a Russian warship. He’d lain under a young woman who’d been hit in the chest. The Swedish coast guard had found the boat and towed it to Gotland. The Swedish sailors vomited when they boarded the boat. Blood was still running off the gunwale into the water, even though the boat had been drifting on the sea for several days. Under the dead bodies was Normunds, who was only seventeen years old.

  Ozols laid his hand on Normunds’s shoulder.

  “This morning we had to drive new poles into the ground,” said one of the men. “They’re ordering us to build another ring of barbed wire fencing around our own prison!”

  “I’ve noticed that the number of guards has doubled. All the new ones are carrying automatic weapons and have dogs.”

  “What’s going on? Are they really planning to hand us over to the Soviet Union?”

  “Brothers,” said Ozols. “Today you will have your beards shaved off.”

  “But we have sworn to protest against—”

  “The time for protests is over. Now we will prepare for battle.”

  The men around him fell silent.

  “We are proud of our people and our land. We will not go to war looking like barbarians.”

  The others nodded.

  “But what are you planning, Ozols? We see only barbed wire and fences everywhere.”

  “This country is divided, with the people on one side and the politicians on the other. Out there, beyond the barbed wire, are ordinary people who are on our side. Journalists and photographers. If the Swedes come into the camp to get us, we will strip ourselves naked, as we are now, burn our clothes, and tie ourselves together with barbed wire. The pictures will go around the world. Stockholm can’t live with that.”

  “What if that’s not enough?”

  “Then we’ll begin a hunger strike,” said Ozols. “The peace agreement prohibits handing over people who are sick or undernourished.”

  “That will only buy us a little more time, though, right? What if they turn us over to Vanyka anyway?”

  “If we get to the end of the road, there will be no choice,” said Ozols. “Then we’ll commit suicide.”

  Everyone fell silent.

  It was Normunds who finally broke the silence. “So the decision to extradite us has been made?”

  “We can’t know that, but we have to be ready,” said Ozols. “Chin up, my brothers. No one kills himself just because he lands in shit, right?”

  The men around him laughed.

  “That’s true, but he might be suffocated instead,” said Normunds.

  Ozols wrapped his arms around him.

  “Mark my words, Normunds. They won’t take us alive, I’ll promise you that. But we must be on our guard all the time. What the Swedes don’t want to do by violence, they’re going to do with tricks.”

  TUESDAY,

  AUGUST 15

  27

  Outside Per Carpelan’s office, Sofia rubbed her eyes. She had lain awake most of the night. After she’d finally managed to drift into a light slumber, she was awakened by a dream about a bloody numeral 8 on the wall. She would never forget the pencil pushed into Torbjörn Lindström’s eye.

  She stepped into her boss’s office and closed the door behind her. He looked up from the Sunday Times arts and culture supplement and indicated that she could sit down. She was punctual, as always. It was just past six thirty in the morning.

  “Are you bringing yourself up to speed?” asked Sofia, nodding at the supplement, which Carpelan had laid on his desk.

  He raised his eyebrows. “We’re spending a long weekend in London. The idea is to leave on Thursday. Jessica wants the whole family to see a musical. I’m thinking about The Lion King. What do you think?”

  “Hakuna matata,” said Sofia, giving him a thumbs-up.

  Carpelan gave her a small smile. “Have you gotten a little sleep?”

  “I slept like Sleeping Beauty.”

  Carpelan shook his head, indicating that he knew she was lying.

  “And what did Sleeping Beauty’s subconscious manage to process during the night?”

  “Not much,” she said.

  “No. Same here, pretty much.”

  “I have a question, however. Why were we already looking at this as possibly the work of a serial killer before we got the call from Berga? If I didn’t know you so well, I would have suspected that you or Tomas Schiller knew something you weren’t telling me.”

  Carpelan gave a slight shake of his head.

  “We had to consider that possibility. The numeral attracted our attention. And now two high-level government officials have been murdered. Furthermore, one of these murders took place at a Swedish defense facility, which makes this bigger than the crimes themselves. It’s an attack on Sweden.”

  “I understand that,” said Sofia. “Is the investigation going to remain ours?”

  “Yes, for a while yet, but I don’t know where this will lead in the end. That’s why I wanted to meet with you now, early in the morning, before all kinds of fools come thundering in here and things take off. No doubt the Swedish Security Service is going to get involved. As are our brothers and sisters in the armed forces. I assume this is going to be one of the longest workdays we’ve had in many years.”

  “You forgot the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs,” said Sofia.

  Carpelan nodded. Them, too.

  “I’ve seen horrible things, but this bastard really wants to terrify his victims,” she said. “And he wants the terror to spread.”

  “You could say he’s succeeded in his undertaking.”

  Sofia adjusted the bun at the back of her head. “The marking on the back of his neck. The blood on the walls. The numeral. The pencil.”

  “He wants to tell us something,” said Carpelan. “But we don’t understand what.”

  “I have a feeling he’s going to see to it that we understand eventually. The question is how many people are going to have to die before that happens.”

  Carpelan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “What about the guy we interviewed, Elias Skagerlind?”

  “I’m pretty sure the analysis of his urine and blood samples is going to show that he was drugged. We’re looking for the bartender who was working late Sunday
and early Monday.”

  “Do we have a name?”

  Sofia shook her head. “The Cage Bar in Gamla Stan has been a little careless. The liquor authorities are going to close the place down. We know Elias and the bar’s owner called him John, but something tells me he wasn’t christened that.”

  “John?” said Carpelan. “As in John Doe? Is that a joke? Do we have a description?”

  “We’re in the process of having an Identi-Kit composite sketch done. We’ve sent the description we have to the different police departments. At this point we’re looking for a guy who worked at a bar in Stockholm illegally, who may have stolen an ID card. Who may be from Central Europe and probably has a tattoo on the back of his neck he doesn’t want people to see. There are a lot of guys like that in Stockholm.”

  “Give me the description, and I’ll make sure the departments make the search for him the highest priority.”

  Sofia leaned forward. “He’s about fifty years old, well built, between one hundred eighty-five and one hundred ninety centimeters. White, possibly German, spoke broken English with the customers in the bar. According to the owner, he always came in and left wearing a black backpack, as if he were keeping his possessions in it.”

  “A European vagabond with a scarf and a backpack? Mr. John Doe?”

  He sighed.

  “It’s not surprising that the matter has the highest priority for Schiller. He and Lindström were friends; they studied together and played floorball together. But I think for the rest of this week we’ll be able to work in peace, more or less.”

  “It’s Tuesday today. So four workdays? What happens when the week’s over?”

  “I don’t know. But I know Schiller was talking about the weekend. On Saturday the regimental commander in Karlskrona is kicking off his annual red deer hunt for celebrities. All kinds of military and Swedish Security Service types and politicians. There’s going to be a lot of talking going on there. On Sunday, Mir 2000 is going to be inaugurated in Kungsträdgården in Stockholm. That represents a new beginning for Russo-Swedish cultural relations, and the journalists are going to take the opportunity to pump the prime minister and others for their take on what kind of relationship with Russia we actually have. To put it briefly, we need to have more by this weekend than we have today.”