The fresh breeze felt warm against her skin and gently rustled the leaves of the palm trees. For the first time since she landed on the island, Irene felt a sense of freedom. Out here she was just one among the thousands of other tourists. Nobody knew that she had been involved in the incident described by the newspaper placards as “Masacre!” She intended to enjoy a lovely outing along the coast and to try to forget the unpleasant memories that kept trying to surface.
She walked at a steady pace past pebbled beaches, noisy bars, beautifully constructed sandy beaches and lavish hotels. When she reached the end of Playa de Fañabé, she turned and strolled back to the hotel.
She saw him as soon as she walked in. He was sitting in the same armchair that had been occupied by Günther Schmidt the previous evening. Inspector Juan Rejón broke into a smile and got to his feet. The same receptionist who had checked Irene in the previous day also noticed his smile and gave Irene a dirty look.
After making a few introductory remarks and asking how she was feeling, Rejón asked if he could buy her a beer at the pool bar. Irene was happy to accept; she also had the impression he had something on his mind.
When they were both sitting at the bar with large ice-cold beers, he raised his glass to her. “Here’s to the happy outcome of yesterday’s terrible events.”
They each took a long drink.
“It wasn’t a happy outcome for the other people in the room,” Irene said after they had put down their glasses.
A dark shadow passed over Rejón’s face. “No. You are in danger. You are the only survivor. You are a police officer. In other words, you are a reliable witness with no connection to either of the opposing sides,” he said seriously.
It occurred to Irene that she was probably the only police officer in Playa de Las Américas who had no connection to any of the gangs on the island, but she decided to keep that thought to herself.
“But the Estonian … the chauffeur, he survived as well,” she protested.
“Arvo Piirsalou. He’s never going to say anything. Not to the police, at any rate.” His face suddenly broke into a broad grin. “You need a bodyguard!”
“A bodyguard!” Irene exclaimed.
An elderly couple at a nearby table looked at her in surprise. She was far more surprised than they could possibly be, but anger immediately took over.
“I most certainly do not need a bodyguard!” she snapped.
He laughed mischievously and held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “No, probably not. But you must be careful. You’re a witness.”
Irene was somewhat mollified by his disarming smile, but still said icily, “As I have informed your colleagues, I didn’t see the killer. Only his arm in the doorway. And the gun.”
“The people who hired the gunman can’t be sure you’re telling the truth. They might think you’re recovering from shock and will eventually remember what he looked like. They could decide that you need to be silenced, just to be on the safe side.”
Every trace of mischief had vanished from his face. Irene realized he was speaking with absolute conviction. A chill spread through her bones. It had never occurred to her that her own life could still be in danger. The thought left her badly shaken.
“My injury was caused by a ricochet. I was standing in a dead corner. I never saw him. And he didn’t see me either. That’s probably why I’m still alive,” she said.
“You may be right. But in that case you must also realize that if the killer had seen you in that room, he would have tried to shoot you, too. This guy didn’t intend to leave any witnesses behind.”
Irene took a long drink of her beer and tried to digest what Rejón had said. She felt her heart rate increase as her unease grew. Images from the sealed room were trying to break through into the light. No, she couldn’t allow that to happen. Not right now. She forced herself to sound calmer than she actually was.
“Any ideas as to the identity of the killer?” she asked.
“Without doubt a contract killer, someone who’s been brought in from outside. We don’t have anyone like that here in Tenerife.”
“My condolences on the tragic death of your fiancée, of course,” Irene said quietly.
She deliberately used the word fiancée, even though the newspaper headlines had referred to Juan Rejón only as Julia Saar’s new boyfriend.
He quickly glanced up from his beer and met her gaze. “Fiancée? No. Julia was not my fiancée. And I wasn’t her boyfriend. You’re referring to that picture in the paper.” He fell silent. His voice was totally under control when he went on. “I don’t … didn’t know her. But I knew her brother well. I’m a surfing instructor, and I teach him and his friends. He asked me to escort Julia to that party. I didn’t want to at first, but he talked me into it. She wanted to make some other guy jealous. She … Julia was used to getting what she wanted, and this guy had dumped her. She was furious. She spent the entire time in the car just bad-mouthing him.” He smiled faintly at the memory.
“Do you know who he was?”
“No idea. Julia changed her boyfriends about as often as I change my shirt. She’s a celebrity here on the island because she’s a famous model, and she’s also appeared in a film. It was only a minor role, but still. So she wasn’t just Lembit Saar’s daughter.”
“But de Viera said your position was compromised,” Irene said sharply.
Juan Rejón rolled his eyes. “Of course! That paparazzi picture gave him the perfect excuse to get me off the case,” he said.
“Why would he want to do that?”
“He didn’t want anyone involved in the investigation who might have the slightest contact with the Saar family. The fact is he’s related to Jesus Gomez. They’re cousins.”
Irene thought over everything she had learned from Rejón. He seemed trustworthy, but was he really telling the truth? She decided to be direct, see if she could work out where he was coming from.
“What do you think is the reason behind yesterday’s murders?”
He lowered his eyes and started to draw shapes in the condensation on his beer glass. Irene didn’t break the silence, but continued to stare at him, challenging him to respond. She wanted to try to get an honest answer out of him, but it didn’t look as if he was ready to provide it.
“There are many reasons behind the murders,” he said slowly.
“So this isn’t just about the failure to deliver the two girls from Sweden to Tenerife; nor is it about Sergei Petrov,” she concluded.
He shook his head. “No. This is about a whole lot more.”
“Like what?” she pressed him implacably.
He met her gaze and said slowly, emphasizing every syllable, “It is definitely not healthy to know everything.”
His voice had a sharp edge, and Irene realized he was deadly serious. Once again she felt a hair-raising chill spread through her body. And she knew he was right. It wasn’t always healthy to know everything. Strictly speaking, none of this had anything to do with her own investigation into Tanya’s death. The gang murders were part of a significantly wider case that was the responsibility of the Policía Nacional. In her opinion, they were unlikely to be able to solve it. They might need reinforcements from the mainland, but that wasn’t her call. Her job was to try to get home without getting herself killed.
“You’re right. What do you think I should do?”
“To be safe?”
“Yes.”
“Stay in the hotel. Don’t leave the building. Have an early dinner and go up to your room. Don’t open the door if anyone knocks. Don’t speak to anyone. Even if they say they’re guests or hotel staff, they could easily be something else altogether.”
Irene opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. “Okay,” she said.
For the second time during their conversation he favored her with that beautiful smile. “I have something I wanted to give you.”
He reached into the pocket of his tight jeans and, with a triumphant gesture,
produced a folded piece of paper, which he handed over to Irene.
“Sergei Petrov’s, alias Andres Tamm’s, flight reservations between Tenerife and Scandinavia. He left here alone early on Thursday morning and flew direct to Landvetter airport in Gota … Gote—”
“Göteborg,” Irene supplied.
“Thank you. Apparently he managed to get a last-minute deal on a charter flight. He had booked a return trip on Friday evening, on the last plane from Kastrup, but that reservation was for Anne and Leili Tamm as well. A one-way ticket for all three of them.”
Irene’s heart was beating faster. So that was why Heinz Becker and Andres Tamm had left Göteborg and driven south along the west coast, in spite of the bad weather. They had obviously intended to try to get over to Copenhagen and Kastrup. Even if the flight was delayed because of the snow, they would have been on the spot for a quick getaway as soon as flights resumed.
They knew who Leili was. They had found her passport. Anne must have been Tanya. Her passport was still missing.
Heinz Becker had probably decided to get out of Göteborg fast because things were getting a bit too hot after the raid on the brothel in Biskopsgården. And once Leili had been handed over to Andres and Tanya was dead, he no longer had a source of income, so it was time for him to travel back to the Baltic states to find some new girls. It would have suited Becker to get to Copenhagen; from there he could travel on to Germany. The combination of the drugs in his system and the onslaught of bad weather had finally put a stop to all their plans. The girl known as Leili might not survive either.
“Thank you. This is really very kind of—” Irene began, but Rejón interrupted her.
“No problem. I knew it would be difficult for you to get this information. It wouldn’t surprise me if it had mysteriously disappeared from the computer. Human error, a computer error … there are many ways of waving a magic wand to get rid of information you don’t want to hand over.”
He smiled again and raised his eyebrows. Irene nodded. She understood perfectly that Rejón hadn’t given her this information simply out of the goodness of his heart. It was also one in the eye for the Gomez gang—and indirectly de Viera.
Irene read through the sheet of paper several times before putting it away in the pocket of her shorts. It showed how the human traffickers had planned to transport the girls across Europe.
IRENE FOLLOWED JUAN Rejón’s advice to the letter, but first she slipped into a little store near the hotel and bought a bottle of red wine that looked pretty good and a large packet of mixed salted nuts. She spent what was left of the afternoon on the balcony with her book. She might be overdoing the suntan a little, but she thought it was a good idea to make the most of the opportunity. It might be a very long time before she had so much sun on her body again.
She tried to call Krister and the girls several times, but without success. Angrily she cursed their new cell phone operator’s poor coverage outside densely populated areas. Then again, the plan had been cheap and had included a new cell that Jenny had immediately grabbed.
She had dinner in the hotel restaurant, then spent the rest of the evening locked in her room with the bottle of wine and her colleagues from the 87th Precinct to keep her company.
Chapter 19
THERE WERE BIG problems when Irene flew back to Landvetter. The steward explained over the intercom that snowfall had created chaos in Göteborg. The snow itself had eased, but there were still strong winds. The passengers had to wear their seatbelts for the last hour due to severe turbulence.
When Irene emerged from the plane, the temperature was several degrees below freezing, and the wind nearly blew her over. She almost slipped and fell several times, but she was glad to have solid ground underfoot. The ice from Friday’s cold snap was still there, lurking treacherously under the fresh covering of snow.
Irene was lucky, and managed to get a cab right away. All she wanted as she sank into the back seat was to get home.
THE HOUSE WAS in darkness. The rest of the family wouldn’t be back until the following day. Her footsteps echoed desolately as she walked up the stairs in the silent house. She quickly unpacked her rucksack and threw the clothes she had worn on the trip into the laundry basket. She ran herself a bath and added a generous handful of rose-scented salts. With a sigh of pleasure she lowered herself into the bubbles and relaxed in the hot water. She reminded herself that she must keep the dressing on her left shoulder dry. The doctor at the Hospital del Sur had told her very firmly that she wasn’t to touch it for five days.
She must have fallen asleep, because she suddenly became aware of the distant sound of a telephone ringing. Just as she was about to leap up and answer it, she heard the answering machine kick in. She was disappointed to hear that the caller didn’t leave a message.
The water had cooled, so she got out of the bath and briskly toweled herself dry to get her circulation going. She rubbed some of the expensive cream she had bought at the airport into her face, then she wrapped herself in the soft robe Krister had given her for Christmas a few years ago and slid her feet into her sheepskin slippers.
Feeling somewhat better in both body and soul, she went down to the kitchen to fix herself something to eat. It was almost ten o’clock, and she was ravenous. Dinner on the plane had been served in something that looked like a medium-sized matchbox, with a tiny plastic knife and fork. There were already signs of turbulence at that stage, and Irene had managed only the small dry bread roll, washed down with mineral water.
The refrigerator was depressingly empty. There weren’t even any leftovers she could heat up in the microwave. She was going to have to cook something. After briefly considering what little there was, she decided on a mushroom omelet. She added crisp bread topped with Kalles caviar; a couple of forgotten clementines in the vegetable rack would have to serve as both dessert and a source of vitamin C.
Irene tried to ring Krister and the girls once again. The only place in the cottage with any network coverage was upstairs by the window at the eastern gable end. With a sigh she concluded that none of them happened to be standing in that particular spot. She would just have to wait until they tried to call her.
She felt a pang of sadness as she thought about her family and what she was missing. They usually ate very well when they were up at the cottage, which was why the refrigerator in Göteborg had been ransacked. They had taken everything that could be used; the only other option was to drive twenty kilometers to Sunne to buy whatever they didn’t have with them.
While she was eating, she glanced through the mail and the weekend papers. A short item in Sunday’s paper caught her eye: the police had picked up two young men for questioning. Both were eighteen years old and had escaped from Gräskärr juvenile detention center in January. They had been found at an address registered to the grandmother of one of the fugitives, just outside Gråbo. There wasn’t much more information, but Irene immediately suspected that this was about Niklas Ström and Björn “Billy” Kjellgren. They both had a lot of explaining to do: how they had managed to steal Torleif Sandberg’s car, for example.
Her eyes were beginning to feel heavy with tiredness. Before she went up to bed, the image of which was hovering temptingly on the edge of her consciousness, she made another vain attempt to reach Krister on his cell. She cursed their parsimony in refusing to have a land line in the cottage. Then she remembered to check the answering machine; they might have called and left her a welcome home message. She pressed the display, and when she saw the number that came up, she was suddenly wide-awake. Twenty-two messages since Friday! She had a really bad feeling as she pressed PLAY. The first four messages were for the twins. The rest were from Sahlgrenska Hospital.
With fumbling fingers Irene keyed in the number. A cheerful female voice answered, giving a ward number and her name, Sister Anna. Irene introduced herself and explained that she had been away all weekend.
“That’s what I thought. We’ve been trying to reach you since yest
erday afternoon,” the nurse explained in a pleasant tone of voice.
“What’s this about?” Irene asked, dreading the answer.
“Your mother slipped and fell on the sidewalk outside her apartment yesterday. It was extremely treacherous! Unfortunately Gerd hit her head and was a little disorientated when she came in here. It took a while before we could get the name and phone number of her next of kin, and she didn’t remember your cell number until today. We tried to call you, but your phone was switched off.”
That must have been during the flight back from Tenerife.
“So she’s got a head injury. Is it serious?”
“No, no. It was just a mild concussion. The real problem is her hip.”
“Her hip?” Irene echoed in horror.
“Yes. She’s broken the femur and damaged the joint itself. She needs surgery as soon as possible; she’s booked for this Tuesday.”
“Will she … will she get through it?”
“The doctors don’t foresee any problem. Her vitals are good, and her heart and blood pressure are fine. Mentally she’s stable and fully alert.”
“What about after the operation? Will she be able to walk properly?”
“Absolutely. She might even be better than she was before. She’s had problems with that hip for quite some time. She told us how long she’s been on the waiting list for surgery. But there is a lengthy rehabilitation phase after an operation like this.”
“Will she be able to go up and down stairs?”
“No. Not at first, anyway.”
Irene remained silent for a moment, then said, “She lives on the second floor of an apartment block with no elevator.”
“Oh dear.”
Yes indeed. Oh dear. Irene decided to deal with one problem at a time. They would have to try to sort out the practical details eventually, but not right now.
“Can I come up and see her tonight?” she asked.
“No, it’s too late. She’s already asleep. She’s on quite a heavy dose of analgesics. She’s relatively pain free, but of course she gets extremely tired.”
The Beige Man Page 21
