A short description of what they’d seen. Transcripts of the interrogations of the father, Gustav Klingberg, and the brother, Pontus, as well as two employees, a maid and a chauffeur. And of the twelve-year-old boy who had found the bodies: Joel Klingberg.
It took her some time to figure out how it had happened. Jan, Joanna, and Joel Klingberg had spent the night at the country manor, along with Gustav and Pontus. The family members had slept in different buildings.
Joel had gone to bed around ten, and his parents had still been awake. When he woke up the following morning he couldn’t find them. He had gone outside and called for them; he noticed that the door of the garage was closed but that the faint sound of a car engine was coming from within, walked in, and realized what had happened. He had run the two hundred meters to the main building and woken his grandfather. Gustav Klingberg, in turn, had asked the boy to call for an ambulance, whereupon he himself, along with Pontus, went to the scene of the incident.
No suicide note had been found.
She kept browsing and discovered an addendum in a separate envelope. She pulled out a typewritten page. It was a petition from an investigator in Stockholm from one month after the incident, a certain Ragnar Hirsch, who wrote that he wished to carry on investigating the deaths. There were a number of questions remaining, he wrote, without going into greater detail. An internal memo from higher up was attached at the very bottom, with a rejection of his request.
As far as she could tell, a superior had barred him from continuing. But, nevertheless, this was why it had been saved in the criminal records—because there were lingering questions.
There was probably a natural explanation. Lack of resources, an ambiguous chain of command, someone with greater insight in the matter who thought that Hirsch was making mountains out of molehills. In any case, this had all happened more than thirty years ago.
She put the materials back in the folder. Ragnar Hirsch. Where was he now? Retired, probably, even if he was still alive.
All he could see of Julin’s house was the top floor; the wall blocked his view. Katz let his eyes move eastward. An empty avenue, lined with pruned trees. No cars. No people moving about. The next house was nearly a hundred meters away and was obscured by trees. No one would see him when he climbed over. If there were surveillance cameras, they were on the inside of the wall. He would be safe at least until he reached the top.
In the other direction, to the southwest, was the garage. The door was open. Julin’s car wasn’t there. According to Emir, who had discreetly staked out the address for him, there hadn’t been any traffic to or from the house in nearly twenty-four hours. By all appearances, Julin wasn’t home.
Katz fumbled in his coat pocket. He felt the grooved top of the pistol, the slender barrel and the chill of the metal. An Austrian Glock with a silencer, nine-millimeter caliber, fifteen bullets in the magazine. Emir had shown him how it worked. To be safe, in case anything happened. Julin might come back. Maybe someone else was hiding in there . . . the man who had tried to kill Jorma.
It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, happened.
He thought of Jorma again. He was a little better now; he’d been taken off the machines but was still in the ICU. According to his sister, he hardly remembered the incident. The police had questioned him, but he hadn’t told them anything.
Katz felt the icy chill inside him, the primitive desire to harm Julin. He had to keep it in check.
It was nearly dark now. The floodlights might come on at any moment, and that would make it more difficult for him to approach the house unnoticed.
Just a few more minutes.
He pictured Jorma’s and Angela’s faces before him as he walked briskly toward the darkest part of the wall. He felt the hard seed in his stomach, the polished stone of rage that had been there as long as he could remember.
It was easier than he had hoped to get over the fence. The mason had been sloppy; there were cracks all the way up. Katz got a grip on the top with his fingers and felt for protruding pieces of glass. To his surprise, the top of the wall was completely smooth.
He lay on his stomach and looked across the yard. He couldn’t see any cameras. There was no barking dog.
The house was dark. He wondered if Joel Klingberg was in there somewhere. But he doubted it. If Julin were behind the kidnapping, Joel would be held somewhere more secure.
He landed on the lawn with a dull thud. He heard waves lapping on the shore of the lake a hundred meters away. He took the Glock from his pocket and disengaged the safety. He wriggled out of his backpack straps and opened the pack up. Everything he needed was there: a crowbar, wire cutters, lock picks, equipment for demagnetizing electronic alarms. Emir could have started a wholesale warehouse for burglars.
The house was directly to his left, but the entrance was in the rear. A single window was lit in the walk-out basement; the angle it was at meant he hadn’t been able to see it from the top of the wall. Someone was moving about inside. A man dressed in a Capitol Security watchman’s uniform.
Katz sat perfectly still, watching the man, who walked to a chair in the middle of the room and sat down. A snag in his plan, but he couldn’t let it stop him.
He looked around and discovered something else he hadn’t counted on: motion sensors in the yard. Faint light came from breakers that stuck up out of the ground every five meters along the entire wall. He had gotten lucky—he’d landed just within the first sector.
He quickly stood up, took a step forward, and triggered the alarm.
Katz circled the house purposefully, under the windows and over to the gravel path by the stairs. Five seconds later, when the guard came out of the door, Katz was standing in the dark behind him and to one side. He hit the guard in the back of the head with the butt of the pistol.
He turned off the alarm and waited for a few minutes, sniffing for enemies like an animal. Silence. The house was empty. There was no video surveillance indoors.
He took off his mask and stuffed it into his backpack. He turned the lights on and off in each room as he searched them. Nothing of interest. Just furniture and decorations. Aside from the kitchen, the main floor hardly seemed to be used.
Katz walked through a dining room and into a hallway. To the left was a set of stairs that led down to the basement level.
This level was more lived-in. There was a billiard room and a rec room that seemed to be used by Julin’s sons—it was filled with various video-game consoles.
There was no cellar. What had he thought, that he would find Klingberg there, chained to the wall?
A smaller room faced the yard. There was a sewing machine on a table. An easel with a half-finished pastel painting depicting a bathing woman. Must be the wife’s domain.
He peeked into the spa area. There was a sunken hot tub and a spacious sauna. A small gym behind a glass wall. Farther on, a bathroom that was undergoing renovation.
He went back up to the main level and continued up to the top floor.
Bedrooms. A two-room suite that seemed to belong to the wife. Two large children’s rooms for the boys. A smaller bedroom, which he guessed belonged to Julin.
The balcony doors opened out toward the water. There was an unlocked door to the right, along the short wall.
He found himself in Julin’s home office, a small room of perhaps eight square meters. Military certificates on the walls. A regiment flag from the SFOR, from Julin’s time in the Balkans. Julin seemed to have left the house in a hurry. A movie was paused on a portable DVD player, a documentary about the invasion of Normandy. There were several electronic alarm systems manuals on a desk. The computer was on, but it was sleeping. Katz touched the keyboard and the screen came to life. The desktop was nearly empty. Aside from the hard disk icon, there was only a program menu.
He clicked on the email program.
There were several emails to Julin’s wife in the outbox; she and the kids were still in Skåne. He had deleted everything in the inbox exc
ept for an old request for payment from an online bookshop.
In the recycling bin were a dozen emails that hadn’t yet been automatically deleted. The top one was from a travel agent. Katz opened it. An electronic receipt for a flight on Air France, Stockholm to Santo Domingo, with a stopover in Paris. The ticket had been booked in Julin’s name. Departure in a month.
He clicked on the next email: correspondence with a commercial bank on the island about a transaction from the Virgin Islands. The fifty million kronor, Katz thought.
Julin was on his way down there to get the money—to launder it or forward it on until it was no longer traceable.
He typed the name “Klingberg” into the search box of the spotlight function, but got no results. Then he searched the hard drive for hidden files, but he found nothing of interest.
He looked around the room. There was a safe under the desk, attached to the wall. The door was open; the safe was empty.
Katz’s eyes fell on the wall socket under the desk. It was a newer model than the others in the room. Only the top outlet was in use. The cord led to a transistor radio on a shelf. He hit the power button, heard canned music, and noticed that the battery light came on. So it wasn’t getting power from the outlet.
He crouched down and took a screwdriver from his backpack. He loosened the screws and pried off the plastic cover. He stuck his hand into the cylindrical space in the wall.
Julin had hidden two objects inside. One was a souvenir bottle wound in black fabric and embroidered with red sequins. The cork was sealed with black wax. Yarn stuck out from the sides like arms, so it looked like a person. The object reminded him of the canvases that Joel Klingberg had received shortly before he disappeared.
The other object was a brown office envelope containing photographs. One of them showed Julin standing on the deck of a sailboat with Pontus Klingberg. Younger versions of them, he noticed. Dressed casually. Both were wearing sunglasses. The photo seemed to have been taken in the early 1980s.
So they had known each other for a long time.
Katz’s mind raced. If it wasn’t a case of extortion, what was it? Collaboration? Had Pontus Klingberg paid Julin to kidnap Joel and murder his wife?
And, afterward, Julin had cleaned up his tracks and made it look like Katz had done it.
He realized that Joel Klingberg was probably dead too. He had been the primary target. The canvases he had received by mail had triggered the chain of events. Information about the disappearance of his brother in the early 1970s. That Pontus had been involved? And then Joel had realized that he was in danger and had planted in Angela the idea of contacting Katz if something should happen to him.
Puzzled, he continued to browse through the photos.
One had been taken outside at a regiment camp. It showed Julin and a uniformed man he vaguely recognized. In the background were recruits with red berets: paratroopers. Karlsborg. The picture had been taken outside the interpreter academy barracks, with someone from the military training staff. Had Julin been in contact with Katz’s commanding officers?
Katz put the photographs back in the envelope and stuffed them into his coat pocket, along with the little doll. Then a sound from downstairs startled him. The watchman was waking up.
In Julin’s wife’s suite, Katz opened a closet door and took out a pair of black nylons. He pulled one leg over his face, took the Glock from his pocket and went down to the main floor. The watchman was lying where he’d left him, locked to a radiator with his own handcuffs. He was conscious, but he looked groggy.
Katz crouched behind him.
“What do you want?” the man said doggedly.
Katz pressed the barrel of the pistol into his mouth and five centimeters down his windpipe until the man started gagging. He held it there as the man was racked with spasms and nausea. Then he pulled it out and wiped it off on the man’s cheek.
“Where’s Julin?” he asked calmly.
The man could hardly speak.
“What do you want?” he whispered as sweat broke out on his forehead. “For God’s sake . . . what do you want from me?”
“Did Julin kidnap a man by the name of Klingberg?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Katz put the gun in his mouth again and furtively disengaged the safety.
Then he pulled the trigger. And the man soiled himself when he heard the pistol click.
Katz stood up and walked around him.
“Where is Julin now? I need to get hold of him.”
The man had started to sob.
“He left yesterday. He was going hunting . . . fowl, I think. And I don’t know anything about any kidnapping. I guard his house when he’s gone; that’s all I do. Damn it, you have to believe me.”
“An address . . . where is he?”
“I don’t know exactly. In Sörmland somewhere. At some estate down there . . . it belongs to someone he knows.”
“I believe you,” Katz said calmly, as the man cried like a child on the floor in front of him. “And don’t forget to tell Julin, if you should see him before I do, that he was lucky to miss my visit. Tell him I’ll come back. Tell him an old friend says hi.”
The Jewish retirement home was housed in a sand-colored two-story building in Skarpnäck in southern Stockholm. She should have realized it from his last name, she thought as she parked outside the entrance: Hirsch.
Two security doors led her into a hall, where a nurse received her. There was an aquarium on a table next to a visitors’ sofa. Colorful cichlids swam among plastic plants and fake coral. There was a map of Israel on the wall.
To the right was a dining room; according to the menu, it served two kinds of kosher entrées for lunch. Lots of glass. A view of a courtyard with a fountain and flowerbeds.
“I’ll show you to Ragnar’s room,” said the nurse. “Just follow me.”
They walked through a long corridor. A door with a sign that read OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY stood ajar. An old woman was sitting on a cot inside, lost to the world. Otherwise, there were no people; it was nearly deserted.
“We have a dementia ward as well,” said the nurse, “but most of our residents can take care of themselves. Our oldest tenant is one hundred and two. The youngest is seventy-five. Ragnar is closer to the median. He’ll be ninety this fall. I don’t know what it is, if it’s the kosher diet or something else, but old Jewish men and women live for a long time.”
They walked by a common room with a TV and a piano. She glimpsed a small cabinet with Torah scrolls and other liturgical objects behind a curtain.
A weekly program with information about activities hung on a bulletin board. The actress Basia Frydman would be coming that evening to perform songs in Yiddish.
They entered another corridor, which had regular doors as if to apartments on either side. The nurse stopped in front of one and knocked lightly.
“Your visitor is here, Ragnar,” she said. “Just don’t forget our outing this afternoon. The bus leaves at three o’clock.”
She had spoken to him on the phone a few hours earlier, so she was expected. The former police commissioner had made coffee and put out a plate of cookies on the table by the window.
Like a gentleman, he pulled a chair out for her and asked her to sit down.
He looked surprisingly good for his age. He was slender and wiry, with thick, short hair.
“Welcome,” he said. “This place isn’t very big, but it’s perfect for an old policeman. The staff are very orderly and proper. There are strict schedules for meals and doctor’s visits. And lots of friends. We’re a fine old bunch here. We don’t even have to go to the synagogue anymore. We have our services in the common room instead.”
He poured her coffee from a Thermos.
“It’s nice here,” she said. “Cozy.”
“And best of all . . . it’s not going to be sold to venture capitalists and run privately, as seems to happen everywhere nowadays.”
There was an ol
d black-and-white photograph on the wall depicting a teenage version of Ragnar Hirsch outside a barracks in the archipelago, along with some other teens; they were all wearing football kit. GLÄMSTA SUMMER CAMP, read a sign in the background. The Jewish camp on Väddö. Katz had spent summers there. When his parents were still alive, he had told her, he had been sent there against his will. He had otherwise hardly spoken about his Jewish identity.
“Jewish policemen must not have been very common in your day,” she said.
“That’s absolutely right. There was a lot of anti-Semitism, and I was taunted all the time. Things like, why the hell I would wear myself out as a detective when I could open a bank instead? You were considered rich and stingy if you were circumcised. And worse things, too, for that matter.”
She thought of Katz again. All the needling he had had to cope with when they were young. Jew bastard. You fucking stingy Jew. And the sick jokes: Katz, do you know how to get six million Jews into a Volkswagen? Two in front, two in back. The rest in the ashtray. A lot of the time he had exploded straight away, which was just what his enemies had hoped for.
“Actually, I think I’m the only Stockholm policeman of my generation who keeps kosher,” Ragnar Hirsch went on. “And definitely the only police officer here at the home. My dad wanted me to become a policeman. He was an insurance agent himself, but he thought it was time someone in our family put on a uniform.”
He was interrupted by a scream from another part of the building, a sort of plaintive cry that increased in intensity and then suddenly cut off.
“Miriam Löwenstein,” said the retired police officer in front of her. “She came to Sweden on the white buses when she was fifteen. She survived Auschwitz-Birkenau against all odds. Saw her mother and younger siblings go into the gas chamber. For some memories, there just isn’t any cure.”
He gave her a guilty smile as he brushed a few biscuit crumbs from his lap.
“But that’s not why you’re here,” he said. “You wanted to know more about the Klingberg couple’s suicide.”
The Boy in the Shadows Page 14
