by Jens Lapidus
He took a seat by the telephone. Got out the phone lists. Four numbers stood out. Each of them’d been called at least twenty times between May and June. He was going to call the one with the most calls first—thirty-three of them in May alone. The number must be connected to a prepaid phone—he couldn’t find a registered contractual plan in any of his searches.
Someone picked up on the other end. “Yes.”
Answering the phone “Yes” was weird in and of itself.
“Hi, this is Thomas Andrén. I’m calling from the Stockholm Police Department…”
There was a click on the other end of the line.
Thomas called the number again. Got a busy signal like a raised middle finger right in his face.
The next number had been called a total of forty-two times during May and June. Went to a Kristina Swegfors-Ballénius. The third one was yet another unregistered number. The fourth was the most-called number: someone named Claes Rantzell.
He started with Kristina Swegfors-Ballénius.
A relatively young voice: “Yes, hello, this is Kicki.”
“Hi, my name is Thomas Andrén and I’m calling from the Stockholm Police Department.”
“Okay, and what do you want?” Blatant suspicion on the other end of the line.
“I’m calling in regards to an ongoing investigation into some very serious criminal activity. I need an answer to a simple question. I have a cell phone from which your number was called quite a bit in May and June of this year. The numbers vary, but in May, for instance, you were called eighteen times from this number.” Thomas read one of the numbers from a Telenor prepaid phone aloud to her.
“Could you repeat that?”
Thomas read the number again.
“No, I have no idea,” the woman said.
What was this bullshit? Kristina Swegfors-Ballénius’d been called over forty times from the phone in question—she must know whom the number belonged to. Thomas tried to gauge the tone in her voice. How much was she lying?
“This is in regards to a murder investigation—I mentioned that, right? Not some regular crime. Someone has called you a total of forty-two times. Someone with the same phone who apparently changes his number as often as regular people change toilet-paper rolls. Please try to remember.”
The woman on the other end of the line cleared her throat. “But that’s several weeks ago. How am I supposed to remember something like that, huh?”
Something was wrong—the woman didn’t even want to remember. Her hostility was too great to be regular old cop skepticism.
“Listen up, Kristina Swegfors-Ballénius. If you don’t try to remember fast as hell, I’m going to drive out to Huddinge and go through your cell phone personally.”
Thomas hoped she would take the bait—one, that he showed that he knew where she lived; two, the threat to go through her personal life—but, really, that kind of thing was not allowed. Especially not for a police inspector who was on sick leave, potentially soon to be transferred, maybe even fired.
It sounded like the woman on the other end of the line was sucking snot back up her nose. Then, silence. He could almost hear her thinking. This was perfect: she knew something. Finally: “Um, I’ll look through my cell phone and stuff. Can I call you back in a few minutes?”
Bingo.
He had a feeling she would call him back.
Ten minutes later, Kicki Swegfors-Ballénius called.
“So, I figured out who those numbers belong to. The calls were from my father, John Ballénius. Don’t ask me why, but he changes numbers often. I didn’t recognize them right away, because I usually screen his calls.” Thomas looked down at the lists in front of him. Correlated with what she said: none of the calls that’d been made to her’d lasted for longer than a second or so. Kicki sounded like she was in a better mood, or else she was just kissing ass. Thomas didn’t care either way.
John Ballénius was the name. A shady last name—probably made up; the guy must’ve changed his name. But it didn’t matter. The likelihood that he was about to hit upon his first real breakthrough was greater than ever. The telephone number the dead guy’d had in his back pocket had to belong to this Ballénius guy.
His first day back in Sweden was off to a good start. Thomas was hoping for a lucky day in more ways than one—soon he would be informed about the verdict on his future.
He heated a mini pizza in the microwave and started frying two eggs. Scarfed down the pizza with bizarre speed: less than a minute. A hidden talent: no one ate as fast as he could.
He wasn’t going to give up, even if those fuckers did transfer him. He was going to run his own murder investigation on the side. Without that Hägerström clown. Without anyone. Make a triumphant comeback. At the same time, in the back of his mind, a darker thought: What if they didn’t drop the preliminary investigation, what if they weren’t satisfied with a transfer? What if he was convicted like a criminal, lost his job completely?
He Googled John Ballénius. Zero hits. John Ballénius was apparently not a Web celeb. But on the other hand—who the hell was? Ballénius’s address according to the population registry: a post office box. The Internet was useless. He needed access to the police’s databases. But that was a problem. Even if he weren’t officially on sick leave, every search was registered—not even cops were allowed to snoop around in criminals’ lives. You had to swipe your access card to even start up the computer database and every word you punched in was logged.
Despite that, he made an attempt. Called Ljunggren and asked him to run a search through all the central criminal databases at once. Ljunggren was skeptical. “Dammit, Andrén, what is this? You’re supposed to be chilling out. We’re looking forward to having you back.”
At the same time: Ljunggren knew that from one perspective, it was his fault that Thomas was in the shit right now. That had to be exploited. “Come on,” Thomas said. “If you’d showed up as usual, I wouldn’t even be sitting here. Just do me this one favor.”
“Don’t tell me this has to do with that dead guy we found at Gösta Ekman Road?”
“Come on, just one search.”
Unbelievably enough: Ljunggren agreed. Ran a search while Thomas remained on the line.
Searching all the databases at once meant any relevant hits showed up in the general reconnaissance database, the databases of the tax and the traffic authorities, the National Police’s criminal records, the passport database, and the national database of suspected persons. If someone was shady, he’d turn up somewhere.
Ballénius was there: convicted of assault and a drug-related crime in the eighties. There’d been extensive surveillance done on the guy in the mid-nineties. They’d thought he was a front man for a bunch of companies. But he’d only been convicted for a few DUIs and one minor drug offense. Later in the nineties: personal bankruptcy. Debt-rehabilitation measures were decided upon in 2001. A prohibition against owning and running companies was lifted the same year. So-called consumption debt’d apparently been what cracked him. The guy was down in the bankruptcy pit again in 2003. What the fuck was Ballénius doing? He was right back on track by 2006—registered as a board member in seven companies. Thomas could feel it getting warm. Wrong. Warm was an understatement—suddenly this thing was on fire. The dude was shady. Shady as hell.
What’s more, there was a street address for Ballénius: Tegnérgatan 46. But there were no listed phone numbers.
It was one o’clock already. Still no call from work about the results from the internal investigation. Should he call? He made up his mind: if he hadn’t heard anything by two o’clock, he was going to call.
Åsa called at five past—wanted to hear if the verdict’d come yet. Thomas was irritated. It wasn’t her problem. “I’ll call you after they’ve been in touch. Okay?”
She sounded sad.
The clock struck one-thirty. Still nothing. What pigs—making him wait like some humiliated nobody.
At a quarter to two, his home phone r
ang. Thomas recognized the numbers on the display.
It was Adamsson’s extension at the station.
“Good afternoon, Andrén. This is Adamsson.”
“Yes, I can see that. Everything okay?”
Adamsson didn’t seem steely or stressed, but the stillness in his voice gave him away. No good news was coming.
“All’s well with me. And you? How are you doing?”
“Åsa and I were on Gran Canaria for two weeks. Really damn nice. Other than that, it’s been a real drag.” Thomas made an effort not to sound too bitter. Adamsson would be his boss again if he came back, and Adamsson was the enemy.
“I understand. But it was the right decision. Strong move, Andrén.” Dramatic pause. Adamsson made it sound like going on sick leave’d been Thomas’s own idea. He continued, “The verdict’s in from IA.” Thomas was holding the receiver so tightly that his knuckles looked white. “It looks good, actually. They’re dropping it. Congrats.”
Thomas felt himself sink into the armchair. Exhale. There were still some sane people left in the police department, it seemed.
Adamsson kept going: “But the police commissioner didn’t like this whole mess. He’s ordering a transfer. And he offered a suggestion, too. Traffic control.”
Thomas didn’t know what to say. A joke. Ridicule. A fucking spit bomb in his face. Worse than that: this was a matter of police honor.
Adamsson tried to sound sympathetic. “I completely understand that this might be difficult, Andrén. But look on the bright side, you’re not being prosecuted. I’ve always liked you. But you know how it is, the police commissioner doesn’t have a choice. It’s too bad that things ended up this way, you’re a good man. Made of the right stuff. And trustworthy too, as I like to say. But now things are the way they are.”
Thomas thought: Thank you, you fucker.
Adamsson continued, “I can just give you one piece of advice. You have to learn self-control. I think you’d do better if you gained a deeper understanding of the situations police work may put you in. Sometimes it’s the right time to act forcefully, but sometimes there is no need for that. Believe me, I’ve been around for enough years to’ve seen pretty much everything. Hopefully, you’ll learn one day.”
Åsa came home two hours later. Thomas was under the car with his headlamp switched off. First, he’d tried to concentrate on the chassis. After forty minutes, he’d given up. Everything just went to hell. He kept forgetting tools so that he had to roll out four times, kept dropping stuff, hit his elbow. He just wasn’t meant to be working on the car right then.
The door to the garage opened. He saw Åsa’s legs and slippers.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Hi there, I’m under here.”
“I can see that. Did the decision come in?”
Thomas rolled out. Remained lying on the creeper. Looked up at Åsa. He’d made up his mind. It felt overwhelming. Big. But they didn’t deserve better, his traitor colleagues.
“They dropped the internal investigation, but I was transferred. To the traffic unit.”
Her face was upside down. It was still obvious—a smile, relaxation. She breathed out.
“Oh my God, what a relief. That’s wonderful. I thought they’d do something worse.”
“Åsa, it’s fucking awful. How can you say that this is a good thing? Don’t you understand what working in that unit’s going to do to me? I’m going to rot. I can’t do it, I have to fix this. I don’t know how, but please don’t say that it’s a good thing.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s still a relief. Imagine if you were convicted. I can’t help it.”
Thomas got up. “There is one more thing I have to tell you.”
“What?” She looked worried.
“I’ve actually said yes to another job offer. As a head security guard. It’s private. Completely outside the force.”
Åsa continued to look worried.
“I’m taking it.”
“Are you joking with me, Thomas?”
“Not at all. I’m completely serious. It’s a part-time job that I think sounds really exciting. So I’m going to call Adamsson tomorrow and tell him that I’m only taking the traffic job part-time and that he can shove his damn sympathy up his ass. The rest of the time, I’ll do this other thing.”
“Thomas, you can’t do that. That doesn’t sound stable at all.”
Thomas felt tired. Didn’t have the energy to argue anymore.
At the same time: maybe this was the beginning of something new.
31
The worst rain all year, even though it was still summer. It pissed on the city. Smattered against the windshield like machine-gun fire. Sick, if you thought about it. Mahmud remembered the sound of machine-gun rounds from when he was a kid. A family wedding in a Baghdad suburb. Back then you shot because you were happy, Dad used to say.
Hopefully, this was his final run to the Shurgard facility for today. Sköndal. The place looked like a cross between a knight’s castle and a barn. A tower with a big-ass sign: SHURGARD SELF-STORAGE. OUR SPACE, YOUR PLACE. Pale-pink wood look—in actuality, the place was sheet metal. Surrounded by asphalt: parking lots, ramps to storage areas, unloading docks. Last week it’d been the storage facility in Kungens Kurva, the week before that the one in Bromma. He’d been across half the city, but they looked the same everywhere he went.
Mahmud dug the place. The idea was tight. No need to meet the Yugos’ underlings unnecessarily. This operation ran on a strictly need-to-know basis, as Ratko put it. They refilled the stuff as soon as Mahmud informed them he wanted to make a withdrawal. He dropped paper off ahead of time at a Yugo-owned bodega in Bredäng. The Yugos were smart: the rules were tougher than at Guantánamo Bay. Mahmud was a nobody in their world. If he got done, they’d say they’d never seen him, never even heard his name. Again: the setup was thick as cream—from their perspective.
What could he do? His debt to Gürhan was what’d made him do it. Honestly: his promise to Erika Ewaldsson hadn’t been 100 percent bullshit. He really didn’t want to be rolling like this. Muscle juice, that was his thing. He chowed on the stuff himself, so why not finance his own body by dealing some pills? But this—if he got collared again he’d be benched for the long haul.
He’d borrowed Robert’s car. Felt weird. A cute little Golf. Sporty: curved gray leather seats, big Navi Plus, and fresh fenders. Nothing wrong with it, but he’d made his previous rounds in Babak’s deluxe ride. That was all over now. Babak’d cut him off. Since Mahmud’d told him about his collaboration with the Yugos. Babak’d asked Mahmud to pack his stuff and move. Shit—Babak was a whiny fucking pussy. A sharmuta.
Outdoor storage units were a little more expensive, but much easier to get to with a car. You didn’t have to go inside the facility, didn’t have to pass by too many surveillance cameras, didn’t have to face too many petrified peeps. Ratko’d grinned when he’d told him that the storage unit was even insured.
“Get it? If there’s a break-in, at least the insurance company’ll pay us back for the store of balsa we supposedly have in there.”
Mahmud punched in the pin code. Fiddled with the key. His hands were slippery. The security in these places: pin code, keys, surveillance cameras. Still: he felt weak. Flashes of light in front of his eyes. The Range Rover with Wisam in the backseat. Why did he think about that? A player like him had to keep moving. Ditch the past.
’Cause after he’d sold the shit today, he’d be free. Soon his final payment to Gürhan and the Born to Be Hated blattes would be over and done with. Three months of terror drawing to a close. He just had to shovel this last snow. Damn, it was gonna be sweet.
The thirty G’s he’d gotten from Stefanovic plus crazy kronor he’d raked in through weed and blow sales over the past few months’d paid off 95 percent of the debt. And tonight at the gym—the deal was basically sealed with Dijma, a big customer. Tight. Then it would be jalla adios to Gürhan. But even more tight: good-bye to the Yugo swine too
—the ones he’d been dumb enough to help liquidate a homie from the block—who he’d slaved for these two months, who’d reamed him so hard up the dirty when he’d asked them for help. He was gonna quit. Do what Erika Ewaldsson’d recommended: Stop with the criminal activity. Become a free man.
Mahmud locked the bag with the shit into his locker at the gym. The wrapping paper and plastic bulked it up. No risk getting it swiped at Fitness Center—if anyone got caught trying to boost something here, he’d first get his balls squeezed a few turns in the cogs of the ab machine and then get his head smashed under three or four plates on the thigh press. After that, they’d make a protein shake out of the sucker and treat the meatheads to samples.
Mahmud walked into the gym. The Eurotechno was blaring. He greeted a couple of big guys by the free weights. What was chill about gyms: a blatte like Mahmud almost never had to feel alone.
On the schedule today: squats. At other gyms: a ton of hooked-up cardio machines and advanced press-and-pull gear designed to isolate muscles you didn’t even know you had. Sci-fi land or whatever. Nothing wrong with that, for some, but according to Mahmud, the key to bulking up was in the basic exercises. Always with free weights. And the squat was king of all free-weight exercises.
There was a lot of talk that squats led to busted backs and other problems. Mahmud knew better: the reason for back pain wasn’t the exercise in and of itself, it was bad technique. The solution was simple for anyone with half a brain. Mahmud’d done his research, talked to the others at Fitness Center. Instead of starting the movement at the hip, you should do what the strength guru Charles Poliquin’d always said: start the squat with your knees.
He loved the exercise. And soon he would go on the juice—then things would get even better. He put 180 pounds on each side of the bar. Began the maneuver by bending his knees slowly. As he lowered the bar, he only moved his hips when he needed to in order to maintain balance. He was going to do three sets of ten. He spit, snarled, growled between his teeth. Felt the blood vessels being pressed to the max. His eyes almost popped. Abbou—it felt good. He was only thinking about the lift, the move, the bend in his knees. No bad memories, no bad conscience, no bad karma.
