‘Well, you can’t just let it go, Lars. I mean, that would be terrible. That wouldn’t be you, Lars.’
‘In a purely formal sense, I can’t do a damn thing. For the past month or so he’s been as free as a bird. Yasmine’s murder has been prescribed since 21 June, twenty-five years after her body was found. The only hope is that he’s done something that isn’t prescribed yet, something I can get him for. But, to be honest, I’m not sure I really believe that’s very likely.’
‘And if you talk to the media . . .?’
‘If I go to the media, he’s a dead man. I doubt he’d even have time to sue me before some nutter killed him. Open season,’ Johansson said, with a crooked smile.
‘You know who her dad is,’ Pia said. ‘Yasmine’s dad, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said in surprise. ‘But I had no idea that you did.’
‘Oh, I know. Anyone who works in financial services knows who Joseph Simon is. When I realized what you were up to, I went online and refreshed my knowledge. It’s an absolutely hideous story.’
‘My very own Nancy Drew,’ Johansson said, and, as he said it, it didn’t feel at all wrong to try to smooth things over.
‘So what are you thinking of doing, then?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t want that bastard’s blood on my hands. I don’t know if I can handle being covered in that sort of crap.’
‘If there’s anything I can do to help . . .’
‘I’m afraid there isn’t. I need to think,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘As long as it doesn’t kill you.’
‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘That would be silly.’ Then he put his arm round her and hugged her, with his right arm, which, in spite of the tightness in his chest and his aching head, felt stronger with each passing day. All in good time, he thought.
72
Monday morning, 9 August
Monday morning, and a very perky Matilda came into his study before he had even finished his breakfast.
‘That Joseph Simon,’ Matilda said. ‘The man you asked me to google, boss.’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘What about him?’ When have I ever asked anyone to google something? he thought.
‘He had a wife back then, Yasmine’s mother. Her name was Maryam Ermegan. Also from Iran. They got divorced in 1986, the year after Yasmine was murdered.’
‘I know,’ Johansson said. ‘What about her?’
‘I googled her as well. Over the weekend, I didn’t have anything better to do.’
‘Tell me,’ Johansson said.
A few years after the murder of her daughter, Maryam Ermegan converted to Islam. She wrote a number of articles in Swedish newspapers in which she defended Islam’s view of women and contrasted it to the liberal, Western view with its practical attitude towards the emotional and sexual liberation of women from their husbands and families. She claimed that this was not about making men and women equal but merely a way to make them easier prey for all Western men, for the entire male collective, and without any shared ties to faith and morality, history and kinship. And, over and over again, she used her daughter’s fate as an example of something that could never have happened in her former homeland, Iran.
In the autumn of 1995, ten years after her daughter was murdered, she took part in a televised debate about the Islamic view of women, its oppression of women, the use of headscarves, female genital mutilation, honour killings and all manner of other things which may or may not have had anything to do with the subject. Maryam caused a scandal on live television when she tried to tear out the hair of the Christian female presenter. Naturally, it had been the main news in the following day’s evening tabloids.
‘She was completely mad. I was sure she was going to kill me,’ the ‘shocked’ presenter told Expressen’s reporter.
One month later Maryam left her adopted homeland and returned to Iran. Six months later Dagens Nyheter sent a reporter and a photographer to write an article about her and her new life. They never managed to contact her because she had vanished without trace, and that ended up becoming the subject of the article. Was she keeping out of the way of her own volition or had an unforgiving totalitarian regime done away with her?
Neither the Swedish Foreign Office nor the Swedish Embassy in Iran had been able to shed any light on the issue. Because she had surrendered her Swedish citizenship before she left Sweden, the Foreign Office in Stockholm was unable to do anything. For them, Maryam Ermegan was ‘a closed case, beyond Swedish jurisdiction’, and the Swedish ambassador in Tehran had no comment to make when questioned about her. This was entirely natural, because Maryam Ermegan ‘was, as a result of her current nationality, an internal matter for Iran and the Iranian authorities’.
‘Do you think they murdered her?’ Matilda asked inquisitively. ‘All those ayatollahs?’
‘I don’t know,’ Johansson said. What difference does it make? he thought, seeing as Maryam’s life had, to all intents and purposes, ended on the morning of 22 June 1985, when the Solna Police rang on her door to tell her that they had found her daughter. That she was dead and had in all likelihood been murdered. They had spared her the details. The evening papers hadn’t been as considerate.
‘You don’t know,’ Matilda said. ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Is it just that you don’t care, or what?’
‘Oh,’ Johansson said. ‘I do care, very much. But it’s what happened before that concerns me most. Maryam Ermegan’s right to human life.’ Not to have to suffer what she would never have thought of subjecting anyone else to, he thought. All the things that people like him were supposed to protect her from. Or at least make sure she got justice on the occasions when they failed.
‘I get what you mean,’ Matilda said. ‘This is just too much. Now that I come to think about it, I could kill that bastard.’
‘Out of curiosity,’ Johansson said. ‘Nothing ever happened to you when you were growing up? A friend, some man who abused you? Tried to get the better of you, wrestled you to the ground, or worse?’ Now we’re there again, he thought.
‘All girls have to put up with that,’ Matilda said, clearly surprised. ‘Well, maybe not all, but most of us,’ she went on. ‘People like me, anyway.’
‘Tell me,’ Johansson said. Good job Pia can’t hear you, he thought.
‘Years ago, when I was just an ordinary teenager, I was at a party with a load of friends. There was one boy from my class – a friend, there’d never been anything like that between us – he lost it completely and dragged me into a room and fucked me in the mouth. He said if I didn’t do it, he’d kill me.’
‘So you did it,’ Johansson said.
‘Yes,’ Matilda said, rubbing her shoulders. ‘Anyway, I was almost as drunk as he was. And he was twice as strong as me.’
‘What did you do after that?’
‘Nothing,’ Matilda said. ‘What do you think I should have done? Told the cops and make myself the school drama queen? I didn’t have a dad. Or any big brothers. No one who could beat the shit out of him.’
‘But that’s the only time?’ Johansson said.
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘I’m listening.’
‘All the times a guy just won’t stop, just keeps on pushing and pushing, until you can’t bear it any more and decide to clench your teeth and get it over with. You’ve never done anything like that?’
‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘I haven’t, actually.’ I definitely haven’t, he thought.
‘I believe you,’ Matilda said. ‘You’re the sort who gets given things. You don’t have to ask for them. You should be very fucking grateful for that. It’s not that common, you know. It would have been cool to have met your mother.’
‘My mother was a very good woman,’ Johansson said. Elna was a good person, he thought. Good enough to let him choose his own life. She was always there but never stuck her nose in. Once or twice, maybe, in em
ergencies, when he was still a child, but never otherwise.
‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ Matilda said. ‘It’s written all over you. You had the sort of mother who did everything for you, without turning you into a mummy’s boy. Take another example, your best friend. He’s never needed to push for it either. His problem was probably keeping up with all the girls who wanted him.’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Johansson said. ‘But what happened to Yasmine – nothing like that has ever happened to you?’
‘Flashers,’ Matilda said with a shrug. ‘They’re all over the place. Old men who rub against you when you’re standing on a train at rush hour, lads at the bus stop wanking while they pick their noses. The first time was at preschool, when I was five. There was a right fuss. Teachers, parents, cops. Everyone. It seemed to go on and on. My friend and me thought it was really horrid. And exciting.’
‘I see,’ Johansson said. What the hell am I supposed to say? he thought.
‘That business with Yasmine,’ Matilda said. ‘And all this really has to stay between the two of us.’
‘Everything stays between the two of us. No need to worry about that.’
‘Good,’ Matilda said. ‘I believe you. My mum’s always been a bit crazy – new men all the time, that sort of thing. My family, when I was growing up, was made up of my mum, my sister, who’s three years older than me, then me, and then all of Mum’s blokes, who kept moving in and out of the flat.’
‘Can’t have been easy,’ Johansson said. Hardly surprising she looks the way she does, he thought.
‘Yeah.’ Matilda shrugged. ‘There wasn’t really much wrong with any of them, and Mum was happy enough. She kept falling in love, and when it ended she’d get really depressed, and then it was time for the next one. The only time she got really mad was when one of them got it on with my sister.’
‘How old were you then?’
‘I must have been about ten, my sister thirteen. It was during the summer. We were on holiday from school, Mum was working as a nurse, her new man was unemployed, lived in our flat.’
‘So your mum was a nurse?’
‘Yes, lots of odd shifts. Anyway, that summer, Mum’s boyfriend got together with my sister. She was thirteen, he was about thirty, she and I shared a room, so I had to pretend to be asleep.’
‘She was thirteen,’ Johansson said. Intercourse with a minor, he thought. Not that that really has anything to do with it.
‘Yes, but she had tits and hair between her legs. Really big tits, actually, even though she was only thirteen. I know it’s hard to believe when you look at me, but she did. And she had a huge crush on him. He never tried anything with me. My sister would have killed me. He pulled my duvet off once and looked at me, but no more than that. He said I needed to grow up a bit first. I think he was basically okay, deep down. Never violent, nothing like that. He drank a lot, smoked a bit of weed, but he was never violent.’
‘So what happened?’ Johansson asked. Wonder how Pia’s getting on at the bank? he thought.
‘Mum caught them at it. Properly at it. She lost it completely and everything kicked off. She threw him out, she was furious, chucked all his stuff off the balcony. She was furious with my sister, furious with me, too. For not saying anything.’
‘Did she report him?’ Johansson said.
‘No.’ Matilda shook her head. ‘She went on a last-minute holiday to Greece instead. Mum met a new bloke. So did my sister. Mum and my sister made it up; it only took a week. They’re pretty similar, at least when it comes to men.’
‘And what did you do?’ Johansson asked. ‘That summer in Greece?’
‘Don’t really remember,’ Matilda said. ‘No boyfriend, anyway. I was still very young. I suppose I spent most of my time in the pool with the other kids.’
‘Is this sort of thing common? I mean, among young people of your generation?’
‘Well, hello, boss! Time to wake up! Suburban kids born in the eighties – no happy nuclear family for us. When I started junior school there were three kids in the whole class who lived with both their parents, out of more than thirty of us. Two-storey duplexes and more money than you can count . . . You and I come from different planets, boss.’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Johansson said, and for some reason found himself thinking about his own children and grandchildren. That doesn’t apply to them, he thought. At least they live on the same planet as me.
73
Monday afternoon, 9 August
In the afternoon Jarnebring appeared, to show what he had come up with so far. He began by giving Johansson a bundle of freshly taken surveillance photographs of Staffan Leander Nilsson.
‘Where did you get these from?’ Johansson asked suspiciously.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jarnebring said with a grin. ‘I took them myself. I took the opportunity to do a bit of surveillance on the bastard yesterday. One go in the morning, then again in the evening. There’s a pizzeria on the other side of the road to where he lives. He seems to be a regular there. I had a word with the chap who owns it. Little Nilsson usually eats there several times a week.’
‘You had a word with the owner. Just like that,’ Johansson said, leafing through the pictures. Looks perfectly normal, he thought. Pleasant, even. He looked younger than someone about to turn fifty this autumn. Just under average height, a comfortable weight, neither fat nor thin, regular facial features, short, dark blond hair, turning grey at the temples, well-dressed, but not ostentatiously so: jeans, red polo shirt, blue summer jacket. What were you expecting? he thought. A black cloak and pointed teeth?
‘Just like that,’ Jarnebring said. ‘I haven’t lost my touch yet, if that’s what you’re worried about. The owner’s a Turk, nice and helpful. When Nilsson came out I went in. I thought I’d grab the glass he’d been drinking from but I wasn’t quite fast enough. Doesn’t look like he smokes or uses chewing tobacco. It could take a while for a couple of pensioners to get hold of any DNA from someone like that. So I took the opportunity to have a quick word with the owner instead. Ordered a beer. Said the customer who’d just left looked familiar. Thought he was someone I used to work with at a haulage company where I work. Who do you take me for, Lars?’
‘So what did the Turk say, then?’ Johansson said. You haven’t changed, he thought.
‘Quite a lot. That his name is Staffan Nilsson. That he was a regular, a good bloke, always calm and well-mannered. That I must be mistaken about him working for a haulage company. According to him, Nilsson is an estate agent. Time-shares, houses, hotels in Thailand. Supposed to have some similar project up in Åre. Good contacts, helped his younger brother get a flat out in Solna. Not free of charge, as I understood it, but nothing extortionate either. In short, a decent bloke.’
‘A perfectly ordinary, decent Swede,’ Johansson said. No drooling, oversized child, no half-crazy conspiracy theorist with violent tendencies and peculiar sexual tastes, not even a fat, bald, retarded lorry-driver from the backwoods, he thought.
‘Exactly,’ Jarnebring said. ‘A perfectly normal, middle-aged Svensson.’
‘What else have you got?’ Johansson asked.
‘A fair bit.’ Jarnebring handed over a bundle that was considerably thicker than the one containing only photographs.
‘You got Gun to run a check on the bastard,’ Johansson said in an accusing tone of voice. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to drag any former colleagues into this?’
Gun, who had been a civilian employee with the Stockholm Police for over thirty years, had spent the better part of her life helping his best friend with the sort of office-based detective work that Jarnebring tried to avoid whenever he could. And had probably been secretly in love with him for just as long.
‘Gun doesn’t count,’ Jarnebring said. ‘Christ, she’s as likely to talk as the Great Wall of China. Not a crack in that façade, not even a loose brick.’
‘I can tell you’ve never been there,’ Johansson said. ‘So wh
at did Gun have to say, then?’
‘See for yourself,’ Jarnebring said.
‘My head hurts.’ Johansson put the folder down. ‘Tell me instead.’
Gun had done all the things she usually did. She looked for Staffan Leander Nilsson in every database that could be imagined to have anything to say about him, from his birth up to the day he encountered Jarnebring, even if he didn’t have any idea who he was walking past when he left his local pizza restaurant.
‘To take the most important facts first,’ Jarnebring said. ‘He’s lived at his current address since the area was built fifteen years or so ago. That was around the time he returned to Sweden from Thailand. He owns his flat, by the way. No wife or kids. But he does have a passport, a driving licence and a car. One of those little Renaults, a couple of years old. Supposed to be environmentally friendly. No red Golf any more.’
‘Has he got any convictions, then?’ Johansson asked.
‘Never convicted, charged, or even identified as a likely suspect. But there are a number of notes on file. Cases that were dropped.’
‘Such as?’
‘He gives the impression of being a bit of a fraudster,’ Jarnebring said. ‘From the late eighties there’s an old suspicion of tax evasion – aggravated tax evasion, even. It was written off a few years later; couldn’t be proved. That would be when he was hiding out in Thailand and the boys in the fraud office couldn’t be bothered trying to find him. You can’t get an extradition warrant for crap like that, not even if you know where whoever it is lives and our foreign colleagues just have to go and pick them up.’
‘I know,’ Johansson interrupted. ‘Anything else?’
‘A couple more fraud cases. One involving a sublet flat that he’s supposed to have sold on the black market but never handed over. The complainant withdrew the charge. Then there was someone who’d put money into some hotel project and thought he’d been ripped off, but that case was dropped as well. It’s not clear why.’
‘That’s all?’ Johansson said.
The Dying Detective Page 28
