In Harm's Way

by Viveca Sten

His strength suddenly left him, and he felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. He sank down onto a chair, overcome by exhaustion.

  He had to pull himself together, think.

  What am I going to say to them? Do I tell them the truth?

  He’d been angry with Jeanette for so long that he couldn’t remember what his life used to be like. His fury had dominated everything, excused everything.

  Petra had been pushed aside—Alice, too.

  Now that rage was melting away, like thin ice on a warm spring day. Michael covered his face with his hands and sat there, not moving a muscle.

  How did we end up here?

  After a while he looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had already passed since the phone call; he had to shower and shave, but first he needed to talk to Alice.

  The stairs creaked as he made his way up to his daughter’s room. The door was closed, as it always was these days. He knocked and went in. When did Alice get so grown-up that he had to knock?

  She was lying on the bed, earbuds in as usual. Sushi was beside her, curled up in a little ball. Alice’s gray sweatpants were covered in white fur.

  “I need to go out for a while,” Michael said casually.

  “OK.”

  She hardly even looked up; it was as if he wasn’t there.

  “Alice—did you hear what I said?”

  “Mmm.”

  He felt a surge of despair. Jeanette was dead, and Alice wouldn’t talk to him.

  You’re all I have.

  “Sweetheart, listen to me.”

  Her angry expression didn’t exactly make him feel better.

  “What?”

  “The police want me to go to the station. They have some questions.”

  “About Mom?”

  “I presume so.”

  She’s such a mixture of a child and a young adult, he thought. A thirteen-year-old who knows everything and nothing, lost in the space between two different worlds.

  “Why do they want you to go in?”

  “I don’t know.” In order to reassure her, he added: “It’s probably just routine. It’s good that they’re being thorough, so we can find out what happened to Mom.”

  He caught a glimpse of something in Alice’s eyes; for a second he thought she was going to confide in him.

  Come back to me, Alice.

  But then she flopped back on her pillow and started messing with her iPod. The moment had passed.

  “I might be gone for a few hours. The police station’s in Nacka, which means I have to drive through the city to get there, and the roads are pretty bad.”

  “OK.”

  He gazed at her pale face, the dark circles under her eyes. She was so skinny. He’d talked to Petra about it, asked her how he should approach Alice, bring up the subject of how thin she’d gotten lately.

  He promised himself that he’d tackle the issue as soon as things calmed down.

  “Don’t you think it might be a good idea to go out and get some fresh air while I’m gone? You’ve been indoors for days. You could go down to the grocery store and treat yourself to some candy if you like.”

  He took out his wallet, found a fifty-kronor note, and held it out to her. Alice placed it on the bedside table without even glancing at it.

  “It’s polite to say thank you when your dad gives you money,” Michael said, wondering why he’d chosen today to pick on her manners.

  “Thank you.”

  The mechanical response was almost worse than nothing. Michael waited a little while longer, hoping for something more, some kind of contact.

  Alice closed her eyes, her body moving slightly in time with the music. He could hear it coming through her earbuds; it was way too loud, but there was no point in saying anything about the volume.

  After a minute or so, he bent down and stroked Sushi’s silky fur.

  There was nothing more to say.

  “OK, so I’ll be leaving shortly,” he said, keeping his tone as normal as possible. “See you later.”

  He left the room and closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 82

  Karin called Thomas on his cell phone as the meeting with Staffan Nilsson was drawing to a close.

  “Where are you?”

  “With Staffan, thirty yards away from you. Did you get my text message about bringing Michael Thiels in for questioning?”

  “Yes, I’ve already spoken to him. The Old Man wants you and Margit in the conference room right away.”

  Thomas ended the call. “What’s that about?” he said to Margit.

  “No idea.”

  They took their leave of Nilsson and headed down the corridor. Karin was already sitting at the table.

  “Did you manage to speak to Aram?” Thomas asked her.

  “No reply.”

  Kalle wandered in, clutching a half-eaten apple.

  “You haven’t heard from Aram?” Thomas said. Kalle shook his head.

  Margit looked around. “Where’s the Old Man? I thought this was urgent.”

  “He’s on his way,” Karin said. “He’ll be here soon.”

  Several minutes passed, and Margit started to look impatient. At long last they heard footsteps approaching, and the Old Man appeared. He was holding his cell phone, and his eyelids looked heavy. He paused for a second in the doorway, before taking a seat at the head of the table.

  “Thank you for coming along at such short notice. Unfortunately I have some very bad news.”

  The room was so silent you could have heard a pin drop, with everyone’s attention focused on the Old Man.

  Thomas’s unease was growing by the second.

  “I’m afraid it’s about Aram,” the Old Man went on. “He’s in Karolinska University Hospital. In intensive care.”

  “Oh my God!” Karin gasped. “Why?”

  “He’s been seriously injured. His jaw is broken, he has a fractured hip, and there’s also internal bleeding.”

  “What happened?” Margit said quietly.

  The Old Man shot her a grateful look, as if to say that her self-control was helping him to hold it together. However, the broken blood vessels were vivid red on his cheeks.

  “This is what we know,” he said, wiping his forehead with a large white handkerchief. “Aram was taken to the hospital late last night. He was found by a man out walking his Labrador. As I said, he’s in pretty bad shape, and is heavily sedated.”

  “Was he hit by a car?” Margit asked.

  The Old Man seemed reluctant to say the words; his nostrils flared before he spoke.

  “He’s been badly beaten.”

  The rage that bubbled up inside Thomas took him by surprise. He slammed his fist down on the table and got to his feet.

  “What the fuck!”

  “Calm down,” Margit said, tugging at his arm. “Sit down, Thomas, and let Göran finish.”

  Thomas gritted his teeth, searching for an inner composure that wasn’t there, but he did as he was told and sank back onto his chair.

  Yesterday he had sat at this very table with Aram, discussing the list of calls from Jeanette’s phone. Twelve hours later the Old Man was telling them that Aram was in the hospital, in “pretty bad shape.”

  The Old Man waited for a moment, then went on: “One or more individuals has carried out a brutal assault on Aram. We’re talking about an appalling level of violence; the doctor at Karolinska said his own family will have difficulty recognizing him.”

  “But he’s going to be OK?” Kalle asked, rubbing a hand anxiously over his close-cropped hair.

  “That’s impossible to say at this stage. It will be a while before the doctors know how much damage has been done.”

  Margit narrowed her eyes. “Where was he found? What time was it?”

  The Old Man wiped his face again.

  “It was late, around midnight. He was in Vasastan, in a children’s play area, of all places. I think it’s called Solvändan. It was sheer luck that the dog owner happened to walk p
ast; otherwise it’s unlikely that Aram would have survived a night out in the cold.”

  Just like Jeanette Thiels.

  “He’s got kids,” Karin said, wiping away a tear. “His girls are only two and five.”

  The room fell silent.

  Thomas thought about Elin; he had given her a bottle this morning. He thought about Pernilla, who had sleepily taken their daughter in her arms before he left.

  Kalle looked as if he wanted to ask a question, but was hoping someone else would do it for him.

  “Does anyone know why he was attacked?” he said eventually.

  “There are no witnesses, but the Stockholm city police are examining the scene of the crime.”

  “What did they have to say?” Margit asked. “Surely they must have found some indication of what happened to him.” She had filled her notebook with tiny circles while the Old Man was speaking. The whole page was covered in blue ink.

  “Margit, you know as well as I do what this is likely to be about.”

  Street violence, Thomas thought wearily. With racist overtones.

  It wasn’t the first time a man with a “foreign” appearance had been attacked and beaten up late at night for no apparent reason.

  Margit’s shoulders slumped. “What about the family? Has his wife been informed?”

  The Old Man shook his head.

  “I just found out he was in the hospital. I’m going to contact her now, but I wanted to let you know first.”

  “She’s in Norrköping,” Thomas said dully. “With her parents.”

  He was trying to absorb the Old Man’s words, find some kind of logic to cling to.

  Yesterday evening he’d dropped Aram outside Skanstull station after leaving Anne-Marie Hansen’s apartment in Södermalm. Aram was going to take the subway to Hagsätra; he hadn’t said a word about any other plans. In fact he’d sounded tired, as if he was looking forward to going home and getting some sleep.

  How the hell had he ended up in Vasastan?

  “Why have we only just heard about this?” Margit said. “The hospital should have called us much earlier if he was taken in last night.”

  The Old Man shrugged.

  “Holiday shifts,” he muttered as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

  “Can we go and see him?” Karin asked.

  “I don’t think there’s much point, at least not for the next few days. He won’t be allowed visitors while he’s in intensive care, except for immediate family. I know it’s not easy to concentrate after something like this, but we can’t just drop everything else,” the Old Man said before leaving the room.

  Karin wiped her eyes with a napkin; Kalle looked as if he wanted to punch someone. Thomas sat there motionless, almost feeling as if he’d been anaesthetized.

  After a couple of minutes, Margit took over.

  “I think a lot of us will have difficulty sleeping tonight. It’s hardly surprising; when something like this happens, we start to think about life and death. What if we’d been attacked and left for dead? What would the consequences be for our own family?”

  Thomas realized that she was trying to explain the psychological mechanism that had kicked in, wanting to instill a sense of calm, but he heard only every other word. His brain was working at fever pitch, while at the same time his body felt drained of energy.

  “It’s going to take time to process this,” Margit went on. “It’s painful to think that a colleague is in the hospital, particularly under circumstances like these. A lot of emotions are stirred up when someone we like and respect is badly beaten—that’s only natural. But we need to think about the case—we have a job to do, in spite of what’s happened to Aram.”

  She looked searchingly at her colleagues.

  Are you OK? her eyes asked. Can you carry on?

  Thomas became aware that he was breathing way too fast, and focused on holding the air longer in his lungs.

  “We’ve just found out that Jeanette Thiels was murdered with poisoned chocolate,” he said, relieved to hear that the words were clear even though his voice was thick with emotion. “There were traces in the truffles found in her kitchen.”

  The numbness was beginning to ease.

  “Mats Larsson’s view is that Jeanette probably knew the perpetrator well,” Margit said. “Which means we concentrate on the ex-husband. He’s coming in for questioning at one o’clock.”

  CHAPTER 83

  Margit touched Thomas’s arm as they were leaving the conference room.

  “Shall we have a chat in my office?”

  “Can it wait for a few minutes? I just need to make a short call, then I’ll meet you there.”

  He shut the door and sat down, closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then he picked up the phone and keyed in seven numbers. Home.

  Please pick up.

  It rang twice before he heard Pernilla’s voice.

  I need you so much, he thought. He wanted to tell her everything, but instead he managed to say: “Hi, it’s me.”

  Pernilla immediately knew that he wasn’t himself.

  “Has something happened? You sound stressed.”

  Thank you for knowing me so well.

  “It’s Aram—he’s in the hospital. We’ve just found out. He’s been assaulted, and was taken into Karolinska late last night.”

  “What?”

  “They’re not sure if he’ll make it.” Thomas swallowed hard. “It looks as if he was attacked, beaten half to death by thugs. Racially motivated, presumably.”

  “Oh, sweetheart!”

  He could tell that Pernilla was equally shocked and upset.

  I’m so angry, he realized. So angry that I don’t know what to do with myself.

  His hand instinctively moved toward his gun.

  “When was this?” Pernilla asked.

  “Last night, after I dropped him off at the subway station.”

  “So you were together yesterday?”

  “Yes—we went to talk to a neighbor of Jeanette Thiels. That was the last thing we did before I came home. I drove Aram to Skanstull, and it sounded as if he was planning to take the subway back to Hagsätra and go to bed. A guy out walking his dog found him in a children’s play area, of all places—Solvändan.”

  “Solvändan . . . I recognize the name. Where is it?”

  Thomas thought back; what had the Old Man said?

  “Vasastan, I think.”

  “That’s it—I was there with Elin in the spring, on an outing with the mother-and-baby group. It’s up above Karlbergsvägen.”

  Thomas heard a whimpering sound in the background; Elin was probably waking up from her morning nap. He couldn’t help wondering if Aram’s two-year-old was sleeping peacefully right now.

  “It’s terrible,” Pernilla said quietly. “How are Sonja and the girls?”

  Thomas tightened his grip on the receiver. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion; why was his brain so sluggish?

  “Where did you say the play area was?”

  “Up above Karlbergsvägen.”

  Aram’s words in the car, just after they’d left Anne-Marie.

  By the way, I looked up Peter Moore’s address; he lives in Birkastan, on Karlbergsvägen.

  CHAPTER 84

  “Just look at the map,” Thomas said to the Old Man and Margit, pointing to the street where Peter Moore lived. He knew he sounded agitated, but he couldn’t help it.

  They were leaning over the Old Man’s desk with a street map of Stockholm spread out in front of them. Moore’s apartment was only minutes from the play area where Aram had been found.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence, no way. The course of events was clear in his mind.

  Aram had told Thomas that he’d looked up Moore’s address. For some reason he must have decided to go over there and check the place out after Thomas had left him at Skanstull. Moore had probably taken him by surprise, putting Aram at a disadvantage, and beaten him up.

  Solvändan was the perfect pl
ace to dump him. The very thought made Thomas’s head pound.

  The Old Man didn’t say anything at first. Weariness was etched in every line of his face.

  “You don’t have any evidence to back up your theory,” he said eventually.

  “If I can get a search warrant, we’ll find what we need. That bastard Moore is behind this, I’m sure of it.”

  Margit’s eyes moved from the Old Man to Thomas and back again.

  “Thomas, we’re all just as upset as you are. But you have to admit there’s nothing concrete to go on.”

  “And why would he attack Aram?” the Old Man wanted to know. “Can you explain that?”

  “Why do racists attack immigrants?” Thomas snapped back. He was getting angrier by the minute as he remembered Peter Moore’s polished manner. “He’s a member of New Sweden; isn’t that enough?”

  “Aram is a police officer.”

  “But Moore wouldn’t have known that.”

  This was his trump card, his best argument. Moore had presumably seen a dark-haired man, maybe even found him inside his apartment—an immigrant to match all his prejudices.

  Thomas wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Aram had gotten into Moore’s apartment somehow; he wouldn’t have been the first cop to do that kind of thing. Thomas was sure he was right: Moore had caught Aram, and decided to teach the immigrant a lesson. Who would care? Just another unprovoked attack to add to the statistics. No motive, no witnesses—the usual scenario in these cases.

  “I know it’s Moore,” he insisted, as if he could convince his colleagues by repeating the man’s name.

  “OK, so let’s say we request a search warrant,” Margit said. “What reason do we give the prosecutor? There’s no confirmed link between Aram and Moore.”

  The Old Man looked worried. “We need to tread carefully, even if it goes against the grain. We’re talking about a political organization here; they might be on the extreme right, but we don’t want the press accusing us of harassment.”

  “Göran’s right,” Margit said. “New Sweden has a high profile; we can’t just trample all over them. The tabloids would love to hang us out to dry for being undemocratic.”

  Thomas was boiling with rage.

  “And what do we do if he dies?” he shouted, slamming the palm of his hand down on the desk so hard that the map drifted to the floor.