Blixt and Sundin look surprised.
“We bent the rules the other day, when that Turkish man fell off the roof,” Blixt says. “But this time we can’t let it pass.”
“Of course not. You’ve got to do your job, just not right now. There’s a murderer on the loose, and we need Zack to help us catch him.”
“Maybe Zack’s the one who ought to be taken off the streets,” Gunilla Sundin says.
Douglas stares at her.
“I’ll do you a big favor and pretend I didn’t hear that. There are three other officers who were part of this operation. Start with them, and I promise you’ll get all the time you need with Zack and Deniz later.”
He walks away before they have time to reply.
* * *
DENIZ AND Zack are still sitting in the van.
They’re discussing how to find out more about Ösgür Thrakya and his organization. They’ve already talked to the drugs division, and the Border Control Agency. And the prostitution unit. They’ve contacted the Turkish police, and approached both Europol and Interpol. No one seems to know anything. The guy seems to live a entirely analog life.
“As long as Sukayana Prikon remains unconscious, he’s the only name we’ve got to go on,” Zack says. “And we really need to make some progress. We can assume that those young girls in the forest really do exist.”
“They do. We’ve got to hope Paw Htoo can tell us more about that house. Niklas and Rudolf were going to St. Göran’s to make another attempt with her today,” Deniz says, just as Zack’s cell starts to ring.
Sirpa.
“I’ve checked to see who owns the buildings housing any massage parlors we suspect are being run by the Turks.”
Zack wonders how she finds time to do everything.
“The buildings are all owned by a company called Merkantus, which is part of the Heraldus conglomerate,” Sirpa goes on. “I’ve got hold of the contracts for the buildings. Sukayana Prikon’s name is on one of them, but the funny thing is that the CEO of the company is listed as the other party, on all the contracts. It would be more usual for someone lower down the hierarchy to do that. Especially in a business with over three thousand employees. It might not mean anything, I just got a bad feeling about it.”
“What’s the CEO’s name?”
“Sten Westberg.”
They hang up and Zack tells Deniz what he’s just heard.
“That name sounds familiar,” Deniz says. “But I don’t know why.”
But Zack does.
He remembers the discreet nod from the well-dressed man in the Opera Bar.
“He was the one on the television news when we were questioning Sukayana Prikon, the one she snorted at. Sirpa’s right. There’s something going on here.”
Deniz nods.
“I just keep wondering how the hell it all fits together.”
She gestures to the scene outside the van.
“I don’t know what you think, but my feeling is that Ingvar Stefansson wasn’t part of this, even if he was clearly mad.”
“We’ve got to tell Douglas about Sirpa’s latest discoveries,” Zack says.
Douglas is on his way back to them when they step out of the van. He points to the two internal investigators, who are standing outside the gate to the allotment.
“They’re going to want to talk to you later. But I’ve managed to fend them off for the time being.”
“Thanks,” Zack says. “Listen to this. We’ve just had some good information from Sirpa.”
He relates the telephone conversation, expecting some show of interest from Douglas, but he dismisses it as if it were nothing.
“We can’t start investigating a CEO just because his name is on a few contracts. We’ve got enough to go on already, and priority number one is to find Ösgür Thrakya, or anyone else who can be linked to Yildizyeli. It looks like the Brotherhood didn’t have anything to do with the murders, seeing as everything seems to point in a different direction.”
Douglas is about to leave, but Zack blocks his path.
“Let us look into this. It won’t take long. And we haven’t got any good leads on Thrakya at the moment anyway.”
Douglas responds with the same look and tone of voice he used when he reprimanded Zack behind the cottage earlier.
“Find Ösgür Thrakya,” he says. “See you back in the office later. I’ve got to deal with these journalists now.”
Zack swears quietly to himself.
His private cell buzzes in his pocket. A text message from Abdula:
Meet me at the Kaknäs Tower in half an hour.
46
“LOOK AT all that water, dear! What a city. So beautiful.”
“Marvelous! And look at those kites!”
The loud-voiced American retirees in the café of the Kaknäs Tower are having trouble tearing themselves away from the view.
Zack can see why. This is Stockholm at its best. Gärdet, Djurgården, Gamla Stan, Östermalm. An impossible range of different greens, even more shades of blue. Treetops and water. All made more beautiful by sunlight that seems utterly unaffected by the terrible things that are going on in the city.
Zack finds Abdula sitting on his own at a window table. He’s rocking on his chair with a Coke in his hand. At the table in front of him is a family with three children, and behind him there are four Japanese tourists with a large spread-out map of Stockholm.
Zack didn’t tell Deniz whom he was going to meet when he left Tantolunden. He just said that it could be important, and she accepted that.
He orders a large coffee and can feel his hand shake as he carries it over to Abdula’s table.
“Why did you want to meet here, of all places?”
“I’ve never been up the Kaknäs Tower before. Thought it was about time.”
Zack shakes his head.
“And it’s anonymous. There’s hardly any risk of running into anyone you know up here.”
Zack laughs and the pressure he has felt in his head since the events of Tantolunden eases slightly.
“Have you seen the view?” Abdula goes on. “I had no idea the city was this green. It’s like we’re living in a jungle.”
Zack looks out of the window.
He can’t help but agree. It’s almost hard to believe that there’s so much woodland in the city. When you’re moving about at street level it mostly just looks gray.
A number of large kites, all different shapes, are floating in the air above the parkland. Green, yellow, red.
People are sunbathing and eating picnic lunches. Zack feels like going and lying down there as well. Listen to the hubbub of strangers’ voices and just doze off in the sun.
But not in the grass.
Never in the grass.
“You look tired,” Abdula says.
“Don’t ask.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, to hell with it. Okay, this is what’s happened.” Zack leans over the table, and says in a low voice: “I killed someone today.”
“Did you shoot the guy who killed all those women?” Abdula whispers back.
“No, we don’t think he did it. But he’d just shot and killed one of my colleagues. Not that he meant to. It was just extremely bad luck. And I didn’t mean to kill him either. I was aiming for his legs, but hit him too high up, in his groin. He died of blood loss.”
“Shit. So if he wasn’t the murderer, why was he shooting at you, then?”
“It’s complicated. It feels like everything’s totally fucked up right now. We don’t even know who the victims were, or where they came from. We thought they were from Thailand, but now it looks like they were Burmese.”
Abdula looks at him.
“You look like a fucking ghost, Zack. Are you pushing yourself a bit too hard at night, or what?”
“No, last night was fine. I was around at Mera’s, that’s all. Had some wine, talked. Really good. But I can’t sleep properly these days. I wake up in the middle of the night, and just ha
ve to get up.”
“Do you need something to help you chill?”
Yes, I really fucking do!
“No, no more chemicals. I don’t want to get addicted. But enough of that. What have you got?”
“On the Turks? Nothing new, really. There’s talk of drug smuggling, of course. Heroin, a bit of opium too. Apparently they’re working with the ’Ndrangheta, which gives them access to the huge, mafia-run harbor at Gioia Tauro in the south of Italy.”
“Nothing about trafficking women?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“And Ösgür Thrakya?”
“No one I’ve talked to has seen him. No one seems to know anything at all. Just a load of rumors. A lot of people don’t even believe he’s in Sweden. His nickname is evidently Gölge. It means ‘shadow’ in Turkish, which seems pretty appropriate. He’s like some sort of fucking shadow.”
“You haven’t heard anything about a house in the forest outside the city? Somewhere they keep wolves? And women and young girls.”
“No, but someone did say something about wolves. That Ösgür Thrakya is supposed to have kept wolves as pets on some farm up in the mountains in Turkey. I thought that sort of thing only went on in Texas. I saw a documentary about it. People with lions and tigers and all sorts in their gardens.”
The young family get up to leave. The father runs after a laughing toddler who’s heading in the wrong direction.
Zack lowers his voice further.
“You must have found something, or you wouldn’t have dragged me out to this tourist trap.”
Abdula takes a sip of Coke.
“There’s a guy called Mehmet Drakan. He’s supposed to be one of Ösgür Thrakya’s lieutenants, and he’s in Sweden.”
“Where do I find him?”
Abdula holds out a handwritten note.
“Here’s the address of a garage out in Farsta where he messes about with old cars. I don’t know any more than that.”
Abdula checks his cell.
“I’ve got to get going. Look, take care of yourself. These guys you’re after really aren’t very nice.”
Zack stays at the table with his coffee, watching Abdula as he disappears into the elevator.
On his way to another meeting, no doubt, to do deals with the sort of people Zack’s supposed to be catching.
Sooner or later we’re going to run into each other out there, he thinks. Me as a police officer and you as a criminal.
And then what do I do?
* * *
SIRPA IS sitting at the kitchen table at home in her apartment. What she’s about to do isn’t something she can do from the network at Police Headquarters.
Zeus is sitting next to her, wagging his tail whenever it looks like she might turn in his direction.
“Go and lie down,” she says sternly. “I’m busy.”
Disappointed, he lumbers away.
She types a short email in English, using the sort of clumsy language she guesses that Ösgür Thrakya’s associates would use.
Please take a look at next delivery of Burmese girls that will come to Stockholm soon. I can promise they will give you and other customers good satisfaction.
And then the link.
The infected link.
She sends the email. It doesn’t look like it comes from her, but from one of the Turkish email addresses she found in Sukayana’s computer.
Now all she can do is wait.
And hope.
If Dirty Sanchez clicks the link, a Trojan will infiltrate his computer, enabling Sirpa to gain access to the whole of his hard drive without him being aware of it.
She guesses he’ll take the bait. Dirty old men usually have trouble resisting that sort of link.
She gets up from her chair. Zeus goes almost mad with delight.
“Okay, okay, just a short walk, then,” she says. “Then I’ve got to get back to work.”
She leaves her laptop on the kitchen table.
The screen is black, apart from a flashing cursor and some discreet characters in the top left corner.
Waiting for connection.
47
EARLY AFTERNOON. The shadows are still short, the sun’s rays intense.
Zack pulls the door open. Welcomes the coolness of the stairwell. Unlocks the door of his apartment, shuts it behind him, and stands still.
Closes his eyes.
Sees his mother’s face. Sees Theodor’s, and Ingvar Stefansson’s.
The boy’s face in the tall grass of the meadow.
The incarcerated girls’ faces. The ones he’s never seen. The ones hidden in shadow.
It feels like he’s drifting through a confused, unmapped landscape where past and present run into each other like watercolors.
And he wishes he were somewhere else.
In a different life.
But he’s got to cling onto what he’s got. Not fade away.
At last he’s got a new name to look for, and from a reliable source as well.
He goes into the living room and opens the secret compartment in the floor. Moments later he has the thin plastic bag in his hand. Ten pills left. And the little bag of sticky, pale yellow powder. Tulip whizz. Its intense, instant effect is incredibly enticing. Just a tiny bit of powder in a piece of toilet paper. Swallow. Boom! The kick of all kicks.
But he can’t take anything like that now. Not when he’s got to work. He opens the bag and takes out two white pills instead.
He gulps them down with some tepid tap water in the kitchen, then sinks onto the sofa and waits.
Longing for the first tickling effect.
But all he can feel is a black substance seeping into his lungs, making it impossible to breathe. And he curses himself.
How the hell could he be taking drugs now? In the middle of the day? In work time?
Should he run into the toilet and stick his fingers down his throat? He’ll have time if does it now.
He has to do it.
So get up, then.
But he doesn’t move.
How could he have let it go this far? He started off being in control, after all. Just took a bit when he wanted to. Like having sweets on a Saturday, just to clear his thoughts. But always clean during the week. Never taking it simply to pick himself up.
Unless it’s impossible to be in control?
He always thought he was.
Until the dreams came back.
The dreams that tear his soul apart every night.
Dragging him deeper and deeper into the abyss.
But not now.
It’s going to be all right.
He opens his eyes. The light is back, and a gentle summer breeze soothes his face. And then they come, at last. The first faint shivers. Like a woman with long nails scratching the back of his neck, then running her fingers down his body.
Tiredness drains away from him, sounds become sharper, colors clearer.
He’s going to solve this case now, once and for all. This is the time for it to happen. He can feel it.
And then the dark clouds will disperse for good.
He leans his head back, relaxes, and lets the amphetamine kick spread out into every cell of his body.
Then he goes out into the hall and pulls on his leather jacket. The twenty-thousand-kronor jacket peppered with bullet holes.
He leaves the apartment, locks the door behind him, and takes the elevator down to the garage where his Suzuki Hayabusa is waiting for him. He imagines the bike practically jumping with joy when it sees him. Like a Doberman that hasn’t been walked, bursting with pent-up energy.
There, there. You’ll soon get the chance to run off some steam.
Not bothering to put on his helmet, he roars out of the garage. He lies low into the ninety-degree corners, enjoying the wind that makes his hair blow about as he accelerates hard between each red light. He pushes hard through the Söderleden tunnel, until the engine sounds like ten million angry bees as the noise bounces off the walls.
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Out on the Nynäshamn road he slows down. The traffic is heavy and Zack realizes that he’s attracting enough attention just by riding a bike without a helmet. He checks the side mirrors to make sure there’s no patrol car heading in the same direction.
He sees a light blue Audi A6 pull out into the fast lane three cars behind and overtake a Nissan pickup.
Fuck, he thinks. It’s after me.
Shit, it really is after me.
He looks again. Imagines he can see the Audi pull out of the file of vehicles repeatedly, as if to keep an eye on him.
Shit, who are they?
The internal investigators, Åke Blixt and Gunilla Sundin?
Or the Turks?
They want to get him. He can feel it very clearly. They’re out for his scalp.
He checks the side mirrors again, taking care not to let the wind catch his head. The Audi pulls out to overtake again, but Zack has had enough. He accelerates to 125 miles an hour in no time. Racing past everything, looking so intently in his mirrors that he almost misses the turning to Farsta. He swerves sharply across the right-hand lane, starts to wobble badly, and almost drives into the side of a timber truck that flashes its lights and blows its horn at him.
Once he’s on the slip road he decelerates and tries to calm down. He checks the mirrors again. No Audi.
He’s shaken them off.
It’s crazy to ride so fast, really. But it can’t be helped. No one can handle a speeding bike better than him. It’s as if he’s more aware than other people, has quicker reflexes. And, in the middle of an adrenaline rush, you don’t think about the consequences of a crash.
As Zack approaches the center of Farsta he turns left after the railway bridge. He can see the map clearly in his head: first left, first right, second left.
He parks the bike outside a large brick apartment block. The worn sign above to the black double doors says ANDERSSON’S GARAGE, but Zack guesses it’s been a while since anyone of that name ran the business.
One of the doors is open. Zack creeps up and looks inside. There’s a smell of oil and old metal in the gloom. He can hear a faint banging sound, like stone against metal, and see two legs clad in overalls sticking out from beneath an old Chevrolet that looks like it’s going to need a lot of love if it’s to regain its former glory.
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