Tony Svensson was waiting for them in the interview room where they had taken him after his formal admission to custody.
‘You know what crime you are suspected of?’ asked Joar.
Tony Svensson smiled and nodded. It was obvious he had been through all this before and he was taking the whole thing phlegmatically. As if you simply had to reckon on things sometimes going wrong, and then you had to take the consequences.
Had he not been so unkempt, he might even have passed for good-looking. But his shaven head, tattooed arms and oil-rimmed nails made him look like the gangster he was. His eyes were dark. Like two pistol bullets aimed at Peder and Joar.
He’s sharp, Peder judged instinctively. That’s why he’s so cool. And because he’s managed to get his solicitor here already.
‘It would be helpful if you answered in words, so it can be heard on the tape,’ Joar pointed out in a friendly way.
Rather too friendly.
Peder went cold. There was something spooky about the role Joar was adopting. Too balanced to be true. As if he might suddenly fly off the handle, throw himself across the table and kill the person on the other side.
Psychopath, that was the word that flashed into Peder’s mind.
‘Jakob Ahlbin,’ he said in a steady voice. ‘Does that name ring a bell?’
Tony Svensson hesitated. His solicitor tried to catch his eye, but Svensson avoided his look.
‘I may have heard the name some time,’ he answered.
‘In what context?’ asked Joar.
Tony Svensson brightened up again.
‘He interfered in the private affairs of me and my friends; that was how we got to know each other.’
‘In what way did he interfere?’ asked Peder.
A sigh escaped the shaven-headed man on the other side of the table.
‘He tried to come between us, make trouble.’
‘How?’
‘By poking his nose into a conflict that had nothing to do with him.’
‘What conflict?’
‘Nothing I want to go into.’
Silence.
‘Maybe a conflict that concerned someone who didn’t want to stay in your group?’ said Joar, leaning back with his arms folded on his chest.
Just the way Tony Svensson himself was sitting.
‘Yes, maybe it was,’ replied Tony.
‘So what did you do?’ asked Peder.
‘When?’
‘When Jakob Ahlbin took an interest in things that were no business of his.’
‘Ah, you mean then.’
Tony shifted his position and the solicitor leafed unobtrusively though his papers. In his thoughts he was clearly already on the way to the meeting with his next client.
‘I tried to make him see that he should stick to his own affairs and leave other people’s out of it,’ Svensson said.
‘How did you make him see that?’
‘I rang him and told him to go to hell. And sent a few emails as well.’
Joar and Peder automatically started flicking through the print-outs they had in front of them.
‘Did you say anything else in the emails?’ asked Peder.
‘You’ve got them right in front of you, for fuck’s sake,’ hissed Tony Svensson, his patience suddenly at an end. ‘Why don’t you read them out?’
Joar cleared his throat and read out loud: ‘Things are looking bad for you, Ahlbin. Back off from this shit while you still can.’
‘Did you write that?’
‘Yes,’ replied Tony Svensson. ‘But I don’t fucking well see how anyone could call it a threat.’
‘Wait,’ said Peder gently, ‘there’s more.’
He read out: ‘Pity you can’t stop fucking us about, scumbag vicar. Pity you can’t see that the one in the sorriest state after all this will be you.’
Tony Svensson started to laugh.
‘Still not a real threat.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Joar. The expression ‘‘sorry state’’ isn’t usually used in a positive sense.’
‘But it’s bloody hard to tell, isn’t it?’ said Tony with a wink.
The wink was a step too far for Joar and Peder sensed an instant change to the atmosphere in the room.
‘All right then,’ he said, hoping to take command of the interview for a while. ‘Let’s try something a bit more colourful: ‘You ought to listen to us, vicar. You’ve got the trials of Job ahead of you if you don’t stop your activities right away.’
Tony Svensson said nothing and his face froze.
Then he leant across the table and raised a finger.
‘I fucking well never wrote that,’ he hissed, underlining every syllable.
Peder raised an eyebrow.
‘You didn’t?’ he said, feigning surprise. ‘So you mean someone else suddenly started emailing Jakob Ahlbin from your computer and signing themselves “SP”?’
‘Are you saying that email came from my computer?’ demanded Tony Svensson loudly.
‘Yes,’ said Peder, looking down at his paperwork.
Only to discover that he was wrong. The email he had just quoted was one of the ones that had not come from the suspect’s own computer.
Tony Svensson saw Peder’s expression change and he relaxed, leaning back again.
‘Thought not,’ he said.
‘So you’re claiming someone else was sending emails to Jakob on the same subject? Someone other than you?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m claiming,’ Tony Svensson snapped. ‘I didn’t email the vicar from any computer except the one I’ve got at home.’
‘You mean the one we’ve just brought in?’ Joar corrected him with sarcasm. ‘We’ve just searched your place and taken a few things for examination.’
The man’s dark eyes grew even darker and Peder saw him swallow several times. But he said nothing.
He’s clever, thought Peder. He knows when to leave it.
‘Okay, is there anything else you want?’ Tony said testily. ‘I’m in a hurry now.’
‘But we’re not,’ Joar said firmly. ‘What did you say when you phoned Jakob Ahlbin?’
Tony gave a loud and exaggerated sigh.
‘I left a total of three messages on the old man’s answering machine,’ he said. ‘And they were almost identical to the emails. Which I sent from my own computer and nobody else’s.’
‘Did you have any other kind of contact with Jakob Ahlbin?’ asked Joar.
‘No.’
‘You never went to his flat?’
‘No.’
‘So how come we found your fingerprints on his front door?’ asked Joar.
Peder stiffened. What in hell’s name? He had not seen any report of that.
Tony Svensson seemed to have been caught equally off guard.
‘I went there and rang the doorbell, all right? Banged on the door. But nobody opened it, and I shoved off again.’
‘When was that?’
‘Um,’ said Tony Svensson, and appeared to be thinking. ‘It must’ve been a week ago. Like, last Saturday.’
‘Why?’ asked Joar. ‘If you didn’t feel the need to send any more emails, then . . .’
‘I was scared I’d judged it wrong,’ Tony Svensson said angrily. ‘I sent the emails to calm the old geezer down, to get him to keep his nose out of our internal affairs. And then it, like, resolved itself, the difference of opinion we had in our group. At least that was the way we saw it. The guy we fell out with – well, we sorted it out between us. But then there was another round of trouble and I was sure the vicar was behind it again. So I went over to his place. But that was the only time.’
Joar nodded slowly.
‘That was the only time?’ he repeated.
‘I swear it,’ said Tony Svensson. ‘And if you tell me you found my fingerprints inside the flat, you’re lying. Because I’ve never been in there.’
Joar sat mute and Peder seethed with fury. How the hell dared Joar go down to an interrogation with
out giving his colleague all the facts in advance?
Joar looked amused.
‘Can we have the names of all the others who can confirm your version?’ he said.
‘Yep, sure,’ said Tony Svensson, sounding exaggeratedly positive. ‘You can start by asking Ronny Berg.’
Berg. The name Agne Nilsson had already given them.
Tony went on:
‘That’s if he wants to talk to you. Then you can hear what the vicar was demanding in return.’
The last word ricocheted around the interview room. In return?
Just as Peder and Joar went off to interview Tony Svensson, Alex knocked on Fredrika Bergman’s door and asked if she wanted to come with him to see someone.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked when she had gathered up her things.
Alex explained about the scribbled name and telephone number they had found in a locked drawer in Jakob Ahlbin’s desk.
‘I took a chance, you might say,’ he went on. ‘Rang the fellow up, told him what had happened and asked how he knew Jakob Ahlbin. At first he refused to answer, didn’t want anything to do with the police. Then he said Ahlbin had rung him about something; that was how they had come into contact with each other. But he wouldn’t say what about.’
‘He didn’t want to talk on the phone or he didn’t want to talk at all?’
‘He didn’t want to talk at all, but I thought if we went out there unannounced, maybe he’d want to talk after all.’
They took the lift down to the garage. Fredrika thought how tired Alex looked. Tired, and worried, too. In another time, and another workplace, she would have asked him how he was, indicated she’d be happy to listen if he wanted to talk. But just now she could not summon the energy.
They drove across Kungsholmen in silence, took the E4 south to Skärholmen. Alex put the radio on.
‘Have the media been beating a path to your door?’ Fredrika asked, knowing what the answer would be.
‘You can say that again,’ Alex said crossly. ‘And they simply can’t accept that we have no bloody comment to make. We’ve got to raise our game here and at least come up with a line or two to keep the news crews happy, with the evening bulletins coming up.’
Fredrika sat quietly, mulling things over.
‘That’s the thing I can’t make any sense of,’ she said eventually.
‘What?’
‘The idea that Tony Svensson and his mates could get into a flat in the middle of town at five in the afternoon, shoot two people and get away without anyone seeing them, and without leaving a single trace behind them. And on top of all that, get it to look like suicide.’
Alex looked at her.
‘The same thought had occurred to me,’ he said. ‘But I have to admit I’m having more and more trouble convincing myself it was suicide.’
‘Me too,’ Fredrika replied.
‘How the hell could you be so irresponsible?’ demanded Peder as soon as they were back upstairs in the department.
Joar looked unruffled.
‘The fingerprint report came in at the last minute and I didn’t have time to tell you,’ he said with a slight shrug. ‘I’m sorry about that, but these things happen.’
Peder believed neither of those things.
‘I could have made a real fool of myself,’ he went on indignantly. ‘It was sheer luck I didn’t put my foot in it.’
He stood there, waiting for Joar’s countermove. When it came, it was as much of a shock as Alex’s sortie earlier in the day.
‘Luck?’ said Joar, his eyes so dark that Peder’s mouth went dry. ‘Luck?’
The tension in the air was as thick as smoke. Joar took a step closer.
‘That seems to be what we have to hope for all the time, working with you. I have to say I’ve no idea how you came to be promoted this far in the force, given how insensitive and unprofessional you are.’
Peder clenched his fists, bounced on the balls of his feet and wondered if he would make it out of the room without beating the hell out of his colleague first.
‘Watch yourself,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m the one in the group on the permanent staff; nobody knows how long Alex will put up with your stirring.’
Joar gave him a contemptuous look.
‘Think we both know you’d be wasting your time, Peder. Alex is more than happy with my performance. How he assesses yours is a bit more doubtful. You and your croissants.’
By the time Joar reached the end of his sentence, Peder was convinced this would be the first time in his life he assaulted another man in anger.
I’ll take him down another time, the fucking madman, he vowed to himself as he turned on his heel and left the room.
In his office he wondered what he really knew about his colleague. Not much at all, he realised. He had worked on cases for the Environmental Crime Agency, and for the past year he had been with the Södermalm Police. Just as Peder had been the year before that. He frowned. He often met up with the lads he had worked with there for a beer, but strangely enough they had never even mentioned Joar.
Thoughts were coming to him thick and fast now, and he could not stop them.
Pia Nordh was still working in Södermalm.
The name brought back so many memories that it almost hurt. Initially a sexual dalliance with an attractive colleague, to escape an everyday life that increasingly resembled a desert trek with no water or mirages. Then a habit. And then nothing. Until he was bored again. In the course of that bloody intense missing-girl case last summer.
His fingers fumbled as he found her number. He was breathing heavily as it rang. And then her voice: ‘Hi, Pia here.’
He felt warmth spreading through his chest. She was someone else’s now, someone serious. The word made him feel quite sick – ‘serious’. What was that?
‘Er, hi. It’s me, Peder.’
His voice sounded pathetic. Feebler than he had intended. There was no response.
‘Hello, Peder,’ she said in the end.
‘How’re things?’
He coughed and tried to brace himself. Somewhere inside he knew he had behaved badly towards her, but he would hardly improve matters by pretending to be her poodle now.
‘Fine, thanks,’ she said.
Still on her guard.
‘Um, I was wondering if you could help me with something,’ he said, lowering his voice, unaccountably nervous that Joar was deranged enough to be out in the corridor eavesdropping. The blood was surging round his body and there was no quelling his agitation. How the hell had he managed to balls things up like this?
Out in the corridor, Joar laughed. Peder was wrenched back to real life and his thoughts were again on the colleague who had given him such a bitter pill to swallow.
‘All right, I’m listening,’ Pia said in a soft voice.
‘Joar Sahlin,’ said Peder, ‘do you know him?’
Silence.
‘He’s pretty new here,’ Peder went on, ‘and apparently he worked with your lot before that. I’ve had a few problems with him and I just wanted someone to check him out. See if there are any skeletons in his cupboard.’
He heard a sharp intake of breath from Pia.
‘For God’s sake, Peder.’
‘No need to spend a lot of time on it,’ he added quickly.
She gave a dry laugh, and he could visualise her shaking her head. Her blonde hair swinging to and fro.
‘No need to spend a lot of time on it?’ she repeated gruffly. ‘Well, that’s very decent of you.’
‘I didn’t mean . . .’ began Peder, rather surprised by her reaction.
‘Leave it,’ she hissed.
He blinked in consternation, but had no time to reply before she went on.
‘Do you think I don’t know what you’re up to?’
All at once, she sounded on the verge of tears.
‘Leave it, Peder,’ she said again. ‘Just leave it.’
And then – the words that made time stand still:
There. Fury exploded, boiled over and drove him almost out of his mind. He’d been working with that bloody psychopath for weeks. And the whole time – the whole time – he’d been in the weaker position. Joar going to the head of HR and squealing about the croissants. Joar having it off with his ex.
‘You’ve got to let it go, and move on,’ she sighed as he said nothing. ‘For your own sake.’
Shame came washing over him. She would never believe him if he said he hadn’t had the slightest idea that Joar was her new boyfriend.
‘Forget I rang,’ he hissed, and cut her off.
Then he sat at his desk and waited for his fury to drain away.
Muhammad Abdullah had come to Sweden over twenty years ago. Saddam Hussein’s regime had made it impossible for him to stay in Iraq, he told Fredrika and Alex once they had persuaded him to invite them into his flat.
There was plenty of room for Muhammad and his wife. The children had already moved out.
‘But they both live nearby,’ he said, sounding happy about it.
His wife served coffee and biscuits. Alex looked around. Someone had put a lot of effort into matching curtains to tablecloths and pictures. There was a sweetish smell that Alex could not quite put his finger on.
As the man appeared to be relaxing a bit, Alex seized his chance.
‘We’re only really interested in what Jakob Ahlbin wanted when he got in touch with you,’ he said in a friendly tone.
Muhammad’s face went white.
‘I know nothing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Alex said gently. ‘But nobody in the whole police force thinks you are involved in the awful thing that happened.’
He drank some of his coffee.
‘Did you and Jakob Ahlbin have a lot of contact?’ Fredrika asked genially.
‘No,’ said the man. ‘Just that once. He called me. And then we met. That was the only time.’
Alex could smell important information. And what was more, he could see that Muhammad thought it important, too. But he was scared, really scared.
Then he decided he had no choice. Leant back a little on the sofa, his eyes flickering around the room.
Silenced: A Novel Page 15
