61
The chatter was everywhere. In line for the cashier at SuperBrugsen, on Facebook, and in the canteen at lunchtime — it was like every single bastard had been hypnotized so all he could think about was last night’s incident on the highway near Helsingør.
Kim Sleizner found it all very annoying. So annoying that he felt like standing on a chair and shouting through a megaphone for everyone to shut up.
Even better, he wanted to beat someone up. Anyone, it didn’t matter; he just wanted to kick and punch someone until he was forced to stop from exhaustion.
Just this morning, he hadn’t been able to leave his flat and head down to the building’s basement gym without being accosted by a neighbour who jokingly asked how he had time to go to the gym while the perpetrators were still at large. And then there was the older couple he passed on the way to his car. Naturally, they were discussing what was happening to the country they’d helped to build; things had gone too far when people were attacking the homeless on the streets.
Sleizner had expected it to be the top news story of the morning, but he was still a little surprised at how effectively it had drowned out everything else. It was such a huge deal on TV, on the radio, and in every newspaper. Several members of the media were still sending live reports from the closed section of highway — you could see the incompetent Helsingør uniforms looking for clues just beyond the police tape.
The news had, of course, spread beyond Denmark. Primarily to the Swedish media, but the Guardian and the New York Times ran with it like it was a fresh school shooting.
THE WORLD’S HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN SHOCK
The strange thing was, neither Dunja Hougaard nor her pasty, fat colleague Magnus Rawn were mentioned anywhere. Sleizner had waded through every line of every column and followed every news report since four thirty that morning.
But he wasn’t fooled. Hougaard was obviously involved. This cookie jar was far too tasty for that bitch to keep her fingers out of it. He didn’t care how much Ib Sveistrup might swear that she had nothing to do with the investigation, that she was lying in bed at home, on sick leave…Sick leave. Talk about your naive country bumpkin.
The problem was, no one knew what the hell Hougaard was up to. It was hardly surprising that Sveistrup was clueless, but so was everyone else he’d contacted. No one had seen her at the police station or near the scene of the crime. She wasn’t at home either. It was like she had purposely gone to ground and was making sure to keep under the radar. No one had any idea what evidence she had sniffed out, whether she had any suspects, or how close she was to a breakthrough.
The nightmare scenario was that she would succeed in solving the case. If she did, all Sleizner’s arguments against her would collapse. He would no longer be able to stop her from returning to Copenhagen.
Sleizner had no intentions of letting it get that far. He decided, after careful consideration, to send the text he had spent more than fifteen minutes crafting.
Did you have time to consider my proposal? If not, I advise you to do so before things get totally out of control.
There was a definite risk that this would come back to bite him. But it was a risk he was willing to take, even if the odds were against him. Especially considering that he’d already received a cordial but firm “no” when he’d called a few days earlier.
At the time, the goal had been to introduce himself and plant a seed. Now it was time to water that seed and let his suggestion grow until its roots had gone so deep that the only option was to give in. He began to craft his next message. It had to convey a threat, but subtly and between the lines. Like it was based on the best of intentions, like he was honestly just worried about the consequences. But before he finished, the phone vibrated in his hand.
I’ve been thinking about it and I have decided to accept your proposal.
Sleizner looked at the message and read it aloud several times to make sure he hadn’t misread. He hadn’t. His foot was in the door, and soon he would be so close on her heels that she would be able to feel him breathing down her neck. But she wouldn’t be able to see him when she turned around, and once he made his move she would have no idea what hit her.
62
Fabian turned off the road and up the drive, where he stopped outside the closed gate. This time he didn’t have to worry about security cameras; he could just climb right over.
They’d tried to contact Jeanette Dawn, calling the house line and her cell phone, but the only response was her recorded voice saying that she couldn’t answer the phone. A triangulation of her phone’s location showed that she had arrived home at 4:53 p.m. on Sunday. Since then, the phone had been switched off.
The plan had been for Molander to come along, but he’d had to wait for the K9 unit and backup from Malmö, and if there was one thing Fabian couldn’t bear right now it was waiting. He’d been waiting since Sunday, and he wasn’t about to waste a single minute more.
The lock on the front door looked like a nightmare for his lock pick, so he walked along the house and around the corner, where he found another door. Once he was in, he put on the protective suit with its hood, rubber gloves, and shoe covers, then stepped into a laundry room that contained two stacked washer-dryers, a large sink, and a storage unit for shoes, boots, and outerwear.
Fabian opened a door and peered into the adjoining garage, which was full of sports cars. Further on, another door led to a dark hallway; Fabian could hear distant noises coming from within. The rustling of his suit made it impossible to identify the noises, but they became clearer as he moved closer. It sounded like voices. Two people were talking to each other.
He drew his weapon, opened the door with his foot, and found himself in a great room. To his left, a staircase led to the second floor. Ahead about ten metres, just where the kitchen began, he saw what he’d been looking for.
The chest freezer.
It was just as he’d pictured. The freezer opened from the top and was large enough to fit a full-grown man. What’s more, the cord snaking over the floor and into a nearby outlet told him it was still functioning.
The voices — he wasn’t sure if they’d stopped or if he’d just forgotten about them. He could hear them again, and this time they sounded agitated, like they were in the midst of an agonizing fight. In English. A jingle took over and he realized it was a TV show. One of the millions of reality shows that padded the listings.
Someone was watching TV.
Unless it was on so people would think someone was home.
The voices broke into excited cries of delight. Fabian stepped into the living room and saw three people with their hands to their faces on the enormous flat screen in front of the empty sofa. Their home had been renovated, and now they were experiencing the happiest moment of their lives.
Uncertain whether there might still be someone else in the house, Fabian left the TV on and turned back to the kitchen and the freezer; he adjusted his gloves and grabbed the handle to lift the lid. It was locked, but he didn’t have to look far to find the key on the kitchen counter, next to a large syringe with a needle that was at least twenty centimetres long.
Inside the freezer, he found Chris Dawn curled up in a fetal position next to a half-empty bottle of Heavy Water vodka. His eyes were wide open and staring straight at Fabian, as if to ask why he hadn’t arrived earlier. A thin layer of frost covered the better part of his face and body. Fabian could already hear Braids’s voice reporting that the injured knees and bloody fingertips indicated that the victim had desperately fought to escape.
Then it struck him why the TV was on and the volume so loud.
Not so he would think someone was there, but to hide the fact that someone was there.
He hurried back to the living room, found the remote, and turned off the TV. On his way out to the great room he shouted a loud hello but there was no response. Maybe he was too late afte
r all. Maybe the TV hadn’t been on to drown out calls for help.
Fabian glanced up at the stairs that led up to the second floor, but instead chose the ones that would take him to the basement. That staircase wasn’t quite as lavish, but he found himself in a hallway full of doors, one of which led to a room that was devoted to Chris’s interest in hunting.
The room contained clothing and boots for all imaginable weather. One shelf featured a collection of lure whistles, and another held various types of binoculars. On the opposite wall, next to a board of mounted knives, was a weapons cabinet with five rifles, some of them with telescopic sights, and on the workbench was another rifle that seemed to be loaded.
Fabian couldn’t see any sign of Jeanette Dawn or her two boys, not in the expansive home spa that was adjacent to the hunting room nor in the wine cellar, which was full of dusty old vintage bottles. But then he discovered another staircase — narrow, rickety, and made of wood — and realized that he hadn’t yet reached the lowest level of the house.
He discovered them in the light of a bare bulb, deep in the corner of the cellar, behind a red plastic bucket and an overturned jerry can of water. All three of them were sitting down, huddling close to keep warm, their heads bent so far forward that they seemed about to come loose. Their clothes were torn and dirty, and although their hands and feet were chained to a pipe along the wall, they had their arms around each other. As if to make sure that none of them would have to face death alone.
Fabian hurried over, put his fingers to Jeanette’s throat, and didn’t know if he should believe what he felt. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. But no, it wasn’t a delusion. It was really there. The regular pressure against his fingertips was as real and true as the dirt floor beneath his feet.
A pulse.
And it wasn’t just the woman; the boys’ hearts were beating as well.
They were asleep; unconscious. Had they been drugged? Perhaps they were suffering from exhaustion and dehydration? He needed to get paramedics on the scene as quickly as possible, so Fabian stood up in the hopes his phone would find a bar or two. But he was too far underground, and his phone wasn’t able to find a signal until he was a few steps from the first floor — and when it did, it rang in his hand.
“Hi, Ingvar.”
“Where are you?”
“In the house. I just found the wife and kids. They’re in a sub-basement. You?”
“On our way. We should be there within five minutes. Are they alive?”
“Yes, but they’re unconscious.”
“I’ll call an ambulance. Hold on,” Molander said in a voice one might use when purchasing new vacuum bags. He passed the order along to one of his assistants.
This was something Fabian still hadn’t grown used to when it came to Molander. Nothing seemed to affect him. When everyone else was fighting to keep their emotions in check and avoid breaking down, Molander would keep moving forward with the investigation, seemingly unmoved.
After a few rounds of akvavit at the Christmas party the year before last, Fabian had spoken up, asking how Molander could maintain his professional veneer even in the most stressful of situations. In many ways, his explanation might have seemed startling, especially coming from a police officer. But Fabian hadn’t been surprised in the least.
“Oh, you just have to disengage from the fact that you’re dealing with people,” he’d said with a laugh. Fabian still remembered every syllable as if it were yesterday. “Our job is really just an exciting game. A brain teaser in the newspaper with a problem that appears to be unsolvable but must be solved at any cost. It’s as simple as that.” Then Molander had raised his glass and winked at Fabian, as if it were all just a joke, before downing the drink.
Fabian had laughed along, although even then he’d suspected that this explanation probably wasn’t that far from the truth. Now, a year and a half later, he was thoroughly convinced this was exactly how Molander saw things.
“They’ll be there in ten minutes. Oh — and if there’s a gate or door, please make sure it’s open so we can drive in…”
Fabian ended the call and perked up his ears, uncertain whether he was hearing things or if a door had just closed somewhere. It must have, because now he could hear them.
Footsteps.
Not hard soles echoing off the floor, but a pair of soft sneakers whispering as they went, almost floating, making them impossible to locate. Another door opened, also impossible to place. But the footsteps were louder now. Someone was headed straight for him. And that someone was whistling.
He recognized the melody as he saw a woman in her mid-twenties come down the hall with bouncing, almost dancing steps. Her nose was pierced and she was wearing colourful sneakers and baggy clothing. Over her blonde dreads, which were held in place with a thick hair tie, was a pair of bulky red headphones.
She was completely absorbed in the music and walked past him without noticing his presence, whistling the looped Clash song that M.I.A. had turned into a huge hit. He followed her down the hall and into the kitchen, where she stopped, her eyes on the open freezer. “Hello?” she called, taking off her headphones. “Anybody home? Chris! Dina Dee in da house!” she continued, in English, only to turn around without warning, coming face to face with Fabian.
63
Fareed had never dreamed it would happen. But yesterday, for the first time in all his years at TDC, he’d left the bunker against his own will. It was nearly midnight, and he’d been absorbed in trying to lead that ornery policewoman to the phone, when the screen in front of him suddenly went black and displayed two words in blinking red letters.
LOGGED OUT
They had managed to find him somehow. After all those years of being invisible, he had been identified, revealed. The shock and panic made sweat pop out under his synthetic TDC shirt, which stuck to his back like a wet shower curtain. He tried to think of how they’d done it, but he couldn’t come up with a single explanation. He never left traces behind. What had he missed?
The only way out he could think of was to end the call with the policewoman, close the laptop, and get out of there before the two guards heading down in the glass elevator could reach his workstation.
The first thing he’d done when he arrived home was pour himself a big bowl of Frosted Flakes. Then he tried to calm his nerves with a dozen or so rounds of Bop It, and just a few minutes after he’d logged a personal best — 348 — he realized that it was probably nothing more than sheer stinginess.
The reason he’d been logged out wasn’t that they had caught him with his hacker pants around his ankles, but because he’d worked several hours past his assigned shift. His screen had given him a warning to that effect at one point. In addition, overtime pay doubled after midnight, and he was sure tight-fisted TDC didn’t feel like paying it.
The only hitch in this line of reasoning was those two guards in the elevator. They’d probably had nothing to do with him. But he’d taken the stairs up to be safe, so he didn’t know whether they had been headed for his workstation or if they’d come down on other business.
Fareed was a little hesitant as he swiped his badge and typed in his code in the morning. But no guards came rushing over, and he was free to take the elevator all the way down to the bunker, take a seat at his desk, log in, and start fielding one stupid question after the next.
At first he was surprised at how pleasant he was finding the work. None of the questions got on his nerves at all. The danger had passed, and he soaked up the relief like sun on the first day of spring. But his enjoyment was short-lived. His boredom returned, and as soon as his lunch break was over he couldn’t keep his fingers from hacking back into the system.
For some inexplicable reason, the phone was still on.
Its dot was pulsing like a blinking lighthouse in the centre of Helsingborg.
64
“Listen, just so y
ou know, I didn’t do anything. If that’s what you’re thinking,” the young woman said, her eyes on the glass of water in front of her.
“I’m not thinking anything,” Fabian said, hanging his jacket on the back of his chair, even though they were outdoors and it was only fourteen or fifteen degrees. The rays of sun felt warm at last, the way one always wished they would. All he was missing was sunglasses. “But I would very much like to know who you are and what you’re doing here.”
“Will it take long?” The woman sighed. “I don’t have all day.”
“I’m sorry we kept you waiting,” he said, finding as he glanced at his phone that an hour and a half had already passed since she had appeared on the scene. “But it’s up to you how long this takes.” Molander and his assistants had been on their own since the K9 handler found a trace in the yard on the other side of the house. Fabian’s time had been taken up by Jeanette Dawn and the two boys. It had taken over half an hour just to cut the chains. But they were finally on their way to Helsingborg Hospital, and with any luck they could be questioned that evening.
“Let’s start with your name.”
“Dina Dee.”
“Do you have ID?”
“What? Jesus, what the hell is this? I’m here to see Chris. Is he here or not?”
“I’m not the one who’s in a hurry here,” he said, although this was patently false.
The woman rolled her eyes, took out her wallet, and opened it.
“Diana Davidsson.” Fabian noted that her ID had been issued more than eighteen months previously.
“Yes, but everyone calls me Dina Dee.”
He wondered if he should ask her why, but decided to hold off. “And how do you know Chris Dawn?”
“We met several years ago when he played Bombadilla and I was working for a sound tech, some total loser. Yeah, so since then we’ve been like this.” She held up two crossed fingers. “He lets me use the studio as much as I want, when it’s free.”
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