Spice Trade

by Erik Mauritzson

  The afternoon before he’d been invited for tea at the ancient house in the crowded medina, the old quarter.

  He walked briskly through the huge Jemaa el-Fnaa market square, filled with canvas-covered stalls selling every fruit, vegetable, and spice imaginable, food vendors with fragrant smoke rising from charcoal grills, snake charmers, fire eaters, acrobats, pickpockets, and dumbfounded, gawking tourists. He was assailed by the incredible din and exotic smells as he hurried along, oblivious to the loud, insistent pleas of stall owners and beggars.

  Lost in the maze of narrow alleys running off the square, the house stood anonymously behind a three-story, tan stucco wall that formed one side of a cramped passageway barely wide enough for two people.

  The small, handleless wooden entrance door was nondescript, masking its solid steel core. He pressed the buzzer in the wall beside the door and a CCTV camera mounted high above swiveled to focus on him. After a moment, the guard watching on a screen in the main house pressed the lock-release button. Hearing the buzz, the man pushed the door open. As he stepped inside, the door closed behind him with a soft, pneumatic hiss.

  Facing him was a wide, colonnaded courtyard filled with flowering plants, ornamental trees, and shrubs, and centered on a glistening white marble fountain, its spray shimmering in the sunlight. The late afternoon sun seemed filtered here. The splashing water and flower-perfumed air created a secret oasis, a hidden world away from the clamorous, dusty streets outside.

  He limped slowly along a flower-lined, flagstoned path to the shaded entrance of the house where two silent, broad-shouldered young men with automatic weapons cradled casually in their arms watched him as he came. The lame man raised a hand in greeting and they nodded slightly as the thick-set figure went by; he was a frequent visitor. Passing under a tiled arabesque arch at the rear of the cool foyer, he entered a large, high-ceilinged room.

  Seated in an ivory inlaid chair in the center of the octagonal room, dimly lit by ornamental lamps suspended on long chains from the ceiling, was an aged man. He appeared to be in his eighties, with deep-set eyes, a sharply aquiline nose, and leathery skin, his sunken cheeks covered by a thin white beard. He wore a long, tan woollen Moroccan robe with the hood thrown back.

  The room’s tiled floor was covered in bright, intricately patterned rugs; plush couches piled with cushions lined the walls. In front of the man was a low wooden table with delicate fretwork, set for tea; another chair stood to one side. His sharp brown eyes narrowed, surveying the approaching figure without expression.

  “As-salamu alaykum,” the lame man said, looking at the ground in front of the other, his hand on his heart, his head slightly bowed.

  “Wa alaykemu s-salaam,” the old man replied, gesturing to the facing chair, and then pouring sweet mint tea from a long-spouted, engraved silver carafe into two decorated glasses.

  “I trust Allah has preserved you in good health and you are well?” the old man inquired, as he took a sip of tea. But his flat tone told his visitor this was a formality devoid of feeling.

  “Yes, thanks be to Allah. And you?” he asked, as he also took some tea to be polite.

  “Allah has kept me well. Thanks be to Him.”

  “And your family?”

  “That is a troubling question,” he said, looking directly at his visitor who was always surprised by these abrupt transitions. He knew the old man, despite being very traditional, was easily bored with endless ritual greetings.

  “How can I help you answer that question?” the lame man asked.

  “My mind is disturbed by concern for my youngest sister’s only grandson.” He paused, and the other man waited for him to go on, taking another sip of tea.

  “It has been a year since he went to Sweden to help with my spice importing business. Being young, he became easily bored and restless. This past summer he told me he wanted to learn more about our other business there, and so I paid for him to work for our supplier.

  “Now I’ve been informed that Ahmed is being sought by the Swedish police in connection with a woman’s death, and has simply vanished. But Ahmed would never do that without my permission.”

  He looked directly at the lame man. “I would be grateful for your assistance to discover what has happened and so put my mind at rest.”

  “I am deeply honored you would entrust me with your family problem.”

  “I was hopeful, insh’Allah, that you would be willing to help me. Here is the information you will need and funds to assist you,” he said, taking a thick envelope from inside his robe and handing it across the table.

  “There is a ticket on tomorrow’s flight to Sweden.” With a hand gnarled by arthritis, he gripped the brass-handled cane resting against his chair and pushed himself up with difficulty. The brief interview was over.

  The lame man put his glass down and got to his feet. Taking a few halting steps backward, he placed his hand over his heart as he bowed his head. “Serving you is my great pleasure; lla yhennick,” he said.

  “Baraka Allahu feek; ttreq ssalama,” the bearded man responded, leaning heavily on his cane. He stood there for a long moment, looking after the receding limping figure.

  15

  GIRLFRIENDS

  Wednesday, January 25, 3:30 p.m. Ekman and Rapp were seated in wooden chairs facing a couch occupied by Dahlin’s two flat mates. The women appeared bewildered by her sudden disappearance and terrible death weeks later. They couldn’t understand how this could have happened to their friend.

  “She led a perfectly normal life,” said Molla, a tall brunette in her late twenties and the older of the two. “It’s really frightening. We don’t feel safe anymore, do we, Olise?”

  “That’s right, we don’t, we really don’t,” said Olise earnestly, leaning forward on the couch. A pale blonde of twenty, she echoed whatever Molla said.

  “You know we’re looking for a man, Ahmed Chafik. I’m sure you’ve seen his picture in the papers and on TV. Did she know him, or have you ever seen him around?” Ekman asked.

  “If she knew him, she never mentioned it to us,” said Molla.

  “And if we’d seen that face, we’d have remembered him,” added Olise.

  “Did anything unusual happen before she disappeared?” asked Rapp.

  “No, nothing. We told your officer all about this when we reported her missing,” said Molla in an irritated tone.

  “Yes, we’ve read the file,” said Ekman. “But it’s often useful to go over everything again in case something was forgotten. We know you want to find out what happened to your friend. You do want to help us, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Molla.

  “Yes, absolutely,” chimed in Olise.

  “The report said you both had gone out dancing the night she disappeared, but she didn’t go with you. Why was that?” Rapp asked.

  “She was feeling a little down and didn’t want to spoil our fun,” Molla said.

  “Had something upset her?”

  “She’d just broken up with her steady boyfriend,” said Olise. “That’s enough of a downer for anyone.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About a week before,” Molla said.

  “And why was that?” asked Ekman. He knew the answer, but wanted confirmation of what Dahlin’s brother had told them.

  “She couldn’t put up anymore with him being a druggie,” put in Olise.

  “And worse, he’d started to slap Lynni around. Even though she’d really cared about him. That did it,” Molla said.

  “He’d become physically abusive?” asked Rapp. It was something she apparently hadn’t shared with her brother or he’d have mentioned it.

  “Yes, she hated that, really, really hated that,” Olise said. “I would too, you’d better believe it.”

  “What’s his name?” Ekman asked to hear it from them.

  “Kalle Jakobsson,” Molla replied.

  “Do you know where he works and lives?”

  “He doesn’t wor
k. He deals drugs. That was a big part of the problem Lynni had with him. His address and phone number are around here somewhere. Let me look,” Molla said. Getting up, she went to a desk against the wall and started rummaging through a drawer.

  “Here it is,” she said, handing a piece of paper to Ekman.

  He glanced at it, giving it to Rapp, who looked at it and put it in his pocket.

  “What did you think of him?” Ekman asked Molla.

  “He seemed okay at first and we were happy for Lynni, but he gradually changed for the worse.”

  “Why do men always do that? Go bad, I mean,” asked Olise with a petulant frown.

  “It’s puzzling. We just don’t know,” said Ekman, straightfaced. “Unless, of course, it becomes a police matter.

  “Thank you both for your time. You’ve been very helpful. Please call me if anything else comes to mind,” he said, handing Molla his card.

  Outside the apartment building, Ekman turned to Rapp. “What does it look like?”

  “The drug pusher boyfriend was abusive. I checked the data base after we spoke with the brother. Jakobsson has no record, but he could have been the other man with Chafik.”

  “Let’s pay him a visit,” said Ekman, as they got into their car.

  16

  AT HOME

  Wednesday, January 25, 9 p.m. Ekman was sitting in his study in his oversize green-leather recliner, his hands moving mechanically, adding dark burgundy stitches to the intricately patterned cushion cover in his lap.

  Years ago Ingbritt had given him a needlepoint kit to pass the time as he recovered from a badly broken leg in a hip-length cast, the result of a collision with a drunken driver. Stitching had become a calming habit that helped him concentrate. The results, displayed in frames, lined his ochre-colored study together with his collection of antique maps.

  Ingbritt had outdone herself with dinner, he thought and had told her so. It had been a very satisfying meal followed by rhubarb pie, his favorite dessert.

  Afterward they’d sat close together on the couch with his arm around her shoulders and begun to watch a television program about the lives of chimpanzees. When it came to a segment about their use in medical experiments in the United States, Ingbritt said, “I can’t bear to look at this,” and picking up the remote from the coffee table, switched the set off.

  “It’s too upsetting. They need to stop torturing those poor animals, no matter how it may help people. Would they experiment on babies if it might lead to new drugs? Thank God we’ve banned primate experiments in Sweden. Is there something else we can watch?”

  Ekman turned the TV back on, flipping through their favorite channels. “It doesn’t look that way.”

  “Then I’ll just go to bed and read for a while. Are you coming up?” she asked.

  “I’ll be along soon,” he said, and went to his study.

  Like Ingbritt, Ekman had been disturbed by the scenes of abused animals. He’d seen too much of bestiality by humans toward one another not to be affected. At least animal experimenters were supposed to be finding ways to alleviate human illness. The men who’d raped Lynni Dahlin had no such redeeming rationale: they’d driven her to her death.

  Life is hard enough and full of unavoidable loss as it is, he thought. No one, no matter how fortunate they appear, escapes unscathed. All the more reason why no criminal has the right to make life worse for anyone, let alone take that life. If he had a core philosophy that underlay his career as a police officer, this was it.

  As he stitched, he reviewed the interview he and Rapp had with Dahlin’s ex-boyfriend that afternoon.

  17

  JAKOBSSON

  Wednesday, January 25, 4:45 p.m. Kalle Jakobsson lived in a rundown apartment building with flaking paint on Poppel-gatan in one of Weltenborg’s poorest neighborhoods. Ekman and Rapp saw that the lock on the lobby door was broken and went in. The sun had set at a quarter to four and it had rapidly become dark.

  The dimly lit stairs to Jakobsson’s third-floor apartment were littered with refuse and there was a faint stench of urine mixed with the stale odor of fried food.

  When they reached Apartment 3B in the back of the building, they took up positions on opposite sides of the door. They didn’t really expect anything to happen, but a violent response by a drug dealer to a police visit wasn’t unheard of.

  Rapp reached over and knocked a few times. They could hear a TV show with the volume turned up high. There was still no response and he tried again, banging loudly this time.

  From inside they heard a muffled “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Hang on.” There was a pause as the speaker moved toward the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Police, Jakobsson,” Rapp replied. “Open up.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We’ll talk inside. Now open the door.”

  They heard a lock click and the door swung open.

  A handsome man in his late twenties with shoulder-length blond hair stood in the doorway. He was wearing a torn tee shirt with the sleeves pulled off at the shoulders and dirty white boxer shorts. His feet were bare.

  “Yeah, so what is it?” he asked belligerently.

  “Let’s take it inside,” said Rapp, flashing his credentials. “I’m Chief Inspector Rapp and this is Chief Superintendent Ekman.” He gestured to Ekman’s towering figure. Jakobsson’s face showed his surprise that they weren’t street cops. He retreated a few paces into the hallway as Ekman pushed past him. Rapp turned and closed the door. The stale cooking odor was stronger inside.

  Jakobsson looked at them for a moment. Then he led the way down the short, narrow hall to a small living room. He turned off the booming, large flat-screen TV in the corner and then shoved a pile of clothes off a faded blue couch.

  “Sit down if you want to,” he said.

  “We’ll stand. You sit,” said Rapp.

  Jakobsson looked up at the two imposingly large men, then sat leaning forward, his hands on his knees.

  “So what’s this all about?”

  “You’ve heard about Lynni Dahlin’s death,” said Ekman. It wasn’t a question.

  “It was all over the news, hard to miss,” he said, pointing to the TV.

  “You don’t seem very upset about your ex-girlfriend dying.”

  “I was at first … real upset … but I got over it.”

  “A fast recovery,” said Rapp, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

  “She was a great girl. I was sorry she broke up with me.”

  “How come?” asked Ekman.

  “We just didn’t see things the same way anymore.”

  “You mean she’d gotten tired of you slapping her around.”

  A look of alarm passed over Jakobsson’s face. “Hey, it was nothing. I never really hurt her.”

  “So you say. That isn’t what we’ve heard,” said Rapp.

  “I had nothing to do with her dying. Nothing, you’ve got to believe that.”

  “Why should we believe a two-bit drug pusher? That’s what you are, isn’t it, Jakobsson?” Rapp asked.

  “You can’t prove anything. And I’ve got an alibi. You can’t come in here and accuse me,” he said defiantly, standing up.

  “Sit down, Jakobsson,” said Ekman in a harsh voice you didn’t argue with. Jakobsson slowly sank back on the couch.

  “Tell us about this so-called alibi,” said Rapp.

  “That Friday night, all night, I was out drinking and partying at a bar. Twenty people saw me.”

  “We’ll need the name of the bar and your witnesses,” said Ekman.

  “Sure, that’s no problem,” said Jakobsson, relieved.

  “There’s a final way you can help clear yourself of involvement, not only in Dahlin’s death, but in her rape.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come to police headquarters tomorrow and give us your fingerprints and a DNA sample along with your formal statement and that list of friends.”

  Jakobsson thought about it for a mom
ent. “That will clear me?”

  “Yes,” said Ekman, but meant only as the other rapist, not for involvement in Dahlin’s death.

  “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “Good. Make sure you’re there first thing in the morning so we don’t have to come looking for you,” said Rapp.

  Rapp and Ekman started to leave as Jakobsson got up and followed them down the hall to the door. Ekman turned and stared at him.

  “And Jakobsson,” said Ekman. “The drug squad will be watching you from now on. You’ll want to find another job.”

  In the street, Ekman said, “What do you think?”

  “He seemed willing enough to give us what we need to exclude him from the crime scene, but I still wonder whether he wasn’t somehow involved.”

  “Yes, he wasn’t really upset about her death, even though she’d been his girlfriend for some time.”

  “We’ll need to put him under surveillance and see what he does,” said Rapp.

  Ekman nodded in agreement.

  After he’d closed the door behind them, Jakobsson ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head as though to clear it. Going to the bedroom, he picked up his phone where he’d tossed it on the rumpled bed. He’d been given a single-use number for emergencies and he called it now.

  “The police were just here. The top brass, for God’s sake. I’m scared shitless they’ll find out. Why did she have to die? You promised it’d be okay. She’d just be gone for good and nobody would be wise. Yeah, I got paid, but only to put you onto that little bitch because she was going to turn my ass in about the drugs. I didn’t get paid enough for this pile of crap you’ve thrown me into. They said the drug squad will be watching me. So you’ve put me out of business too, and guess what, I need compensation. Now.” He listened for a moment.