The Sword of Justice

by Leif G. W. Persson

  Quite phenomenal, Bäckström sighed, directing a devout nod of gratitude towards the chandelier, just in case. A stroke of genius to let the Anchor handle the arrest, he thought. Mind you, it was surely no more than fair for him to receive commission of just a few per cent on the millions the film had probably already earned the paper.

  After a couple of hours of restorative sleep, Bäckström called Lisa Lamm and enquired about the afternoon’s developments. As far as von Comer was concerned, he had done precisely as Bäckström had predicted. And she had done her duty as a prosecutor and had requested that he be remanded in custody on the grounds of reasonable suspicion of having committed either aggravated fraud or attempted aggravated fraud. She had opened a preliminary investigation into him for the assault of a public official and planned to take action on the murder as soon as they had heard back from the National Forensics Lab. No matter what those results showed, she was inclined to hold him over the weekend. Ambitious woman. She’s probably trying to ingratiate herself because she’s heard about the super-salami, Bäckström thought.

  That left just one more work-related call to make before it was time to relax and plan the evening’s activities. He took out his private mobile and called his tame reporter at the larger of the country’s two evening papers to tell him about the latest developments.

  ‘Brilliant, Bäckström,’ the reporter said. ‘So you’re saying he’s being remanded in custody on grounds of reasonable evidence and will be held over the weekend? What about his suspected involvement in the murder?’

  ‘That’s ongoing,’ Bäckström said. ‘I’m expecting to get results back from the National Forensics Lab tomorrow. Naturally, I’ll keep you informed as and when anything happens.

  ‘By the way, what have you lot got planned for tomorrow?’

  There was any amount of material, according to the reporter. Their readers’ response had been huge, and the torrent of tips that had crashed down on the newsroom was like a tsunami, so now they just had to go through everything in the right order. The problem they faced was the opposite of what was usually the case for the media, considering all the material they had at their disposal. Usually, they were trying to make mountains out of molehills, but now they suddenly had the opposite problem.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Bäckström asked. What’s the fucker going on about?

  ‘We don’t want to make a molehill out of a really big mountain just so we can squeeze it in the paper,’ the reporter explained.

  ‘Okay,’ Bäckström said. ‘Has anything else happened that I ought to know about?’

  Nothing much, according to the reporter. The newsroom was planning to dig deeper into Eriksson’s murder and the comprehensive art fraud that had to be the motive behind it. And of course they were going to be investigating the close connections between the king’s best friend and the leading representatives of the very worst forms of organized crime.

  The paper’s political desk had already mobilized fifty female MPs from various parties who intended to go public with their support of Bäckström’s colleague, Detective Inspector Annika Carlsson. They were also going to run a lengthy interview with the Minister for Equality, in which she heaped praise on Carlsson the policewoman. Finally, a woman who had had enough of male violence against women and had the courage to fight back. The minister herself had joined the Republican Association the moment she saw the video. Only now had she realized the swamp of misogyny that the king and his friends inhabited.

  ‘The old bag must be a fucking dyke,’ Bäckström pronounced.

  ‘Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?’ the reporter sighed. ‘Right now, we’re working on getting an interview with the queen about the king’s view of women. Apparently, their press secretary is going to get back to us tomorrow. With a bit of luck, we’ll be able to get it into the paper over the weekend.

  ‘And then there’s all the usual, of course. Statements and petitions and campaigns, all that stuff,’ the reporter said in summary. ‘It seems the sports desk is going to run some sort of special report where female boxers, wrestlers and martial arts experts give women advice on how to beat men up.’

  ‘Okay, I hear what you’re saying,’ Bäckström said. How could anyone defend themselves against a woman like Anchor Carlsson?

  ‘Actually, there was one more thing,’ the reporter said, sounding like he’d just thought of something.

  ‘Okay, I’m listening,’ Bäckström said.

  ‘Some weird woman called, claiming she’d seen one of her paintings in the paper. It was the one of that fat priest, the one I got from you. The bloke with his hand in the collection box. She reckoned it was her painting.’

  ‘Did she give her name?’ That must be the one GeGurra said he’d bought.

  ‘Obviously, I asked, but she said she wouldn’t dream of giving her name to someone like me. She sounded really stuck-up, if that wasn’t already obvious.’

  ‘So what did you say to that?’

  ‘I suggested that she call you. If she was having such a problem talking to someone like me, I mean. If she wanted to come forward with any information.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘That she’d thought of doing that. But that she hadn’t got time. She was about to get married and would be away on her honeymoon. But she said she’d call you as soon as she gets back.’

  ‘She’s going to call me?’

  ‘Yes, she reckons she knows you, and as soon as she gets back from her honeymoon she’s going to call you.’

  Knows me? Another one, Bäckström thought. There’s no end to them.

  108

  Anchor Carlsson had had to turn her phone off. Journalists had been calling non-stop all day, almost all of them women, or ‘sisters’, as a few of them called themselves, and they all wanted the same thing. That she would come forward and tell them about the sense of liberation she must have felt when she assaulted the king’s best friend and put him in cuffs. It wasn’t until she got in her car that evening to drive back to her little flat in Bergshamra that she discovered she had five messages from a very agitated Isabella Norén, asking her to call her back.

  ‘Sorry I haven’t called before, but my phone’s been switched off,’ Annika said. ‘How can I help you?’ She sounds wiped out, she thought. Something must have happened.

  ‘I’ve been threatened,’ Isabella said. ‘Some really nasty blokes appeared after I got home from work. You’ve got to help me.’

  ‘Okay,’ Annika said. ‘I’m on my way. Don’t hang up … start by taking a deep breath … then we’ll talk as I’m driving … I’m going to need the code to the front door … and I’ll be there in ten minutes …’

  Annika Carlsson kept her promise. Ten minutes later she stepped into the hall of Isabella’s apartment in Östermalm to find a red-eyed and agitated Isabella Norén. Five minutes later they were sitting on her sofa in the living room.

  ‘Tell me,’ Annika Carlsson said. She leaned towards her, giving her a friendly nod and a sisterly smile.

  Isabella had left the office just before seven that evening. She had walked home, stopping on the way to get some food and a newspaper, and got to her apartment about half an hour after leaving work.

  While she was standing in the hall, one bag in her hand, another that she’d just put down, the doorbell rang, and, assuming it was her neighbour wanting to talk to her, she opened the door without checking to see who it was first.

  ‘My neighbour’s a nice old lady. Sometimes I get the feeling that she’s been standing waiting for me when I get home.’

  ‘I understand.’ Annika nodded for her to go on.

  ‘It was Afsan Ibrahim,’ Isabella Norén said. ‘You know who that is, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘All too well.’

  ‘Thomas’s most regular client,’ Isabella said with a forced smile. ‘Him and all his friends. He had two of them with him. In the office, we usually call them Ali and Ali. I can find out what their
names are if you want to know. Two really nasty types, with dead eyes. They just stand there staring at you, if you know what I mean. Never say anything. Not even if you say hello to them.’

  ‘So what did Afsan want?’

  ‘He wanted to talk to me. He wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t as if he was asking. So I said yes. As long as it didn’t take too long, because I was going to be meeting my boyfriend for dinner in half an hour.’

  ‘But you’d made that bit up?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Boyfriend and dinner. So we sat down in here, to talk, while those two creeps stayed in the hall. He wanted to talk about Thomas.’

  ‘He wanted to talk to you about Thomas? Why you in particular?’

  ‘He told me why. It was the first thing he said. Because I used to be Thomas’s girlfriend, he wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘Why did he think that?’

  ‘Thomas and I were in a bar a few months ago. We were having a nice time, tucked away in a corner drinking wine, then Afsan came over and said hello. Then he spoke to Thomas for a while – five minutes, maybe – about one of his friends who’d messed up and needed help, and then he left. It can’t have been too difficult for him to work out what was going on.’

  ‘Your address, then? How did he get hold of that?’

  ‘Certainly not from me, anyway. But it’s probably not that hard to find out where I live.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  Afsan Ibrahim wanted to talk about money. Money that Thomas Eriksson owed him. A lot of money. Money he wanted back.

  ‘Because I was Thomas’s girlfriend, he wanted me to help with that. I told him the truth: I said I had no idea about Thomas’s finances or how much money he had and where it was. Or if he even had any.’

  ‘How did he take that?’

  ‘He said, if that was the case, then I’d better find out. That I and everyone else working for the firm was just as responsible for Thomas’s debt as he was himself. I didn’t comment on that, as you can probably appreciate.’

  ‘I certainly can.’

  ‘Anyway, he was up at the office yesterday, talking to Peter. He’s the executor of Thomas’s estate, of course. They must have been talking for a good hour. He had Ali and Ali with him. And one other man I’d never seen before. He seemed a lot more pleasant. He actually smiled, but he didn’t say what his name was. Peter must have sat with the four of them for at least an hour.’

  ‘You don’t know what they were talking about?’

  ‘No,’ Isabella Norén said, shaking her head. ‘But it can’t have been a particularly pleasant conversation, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen Peter so shaken up as when they eventually left. He just went straight into his room and closed the door.’

  ‘Afsan – did he say how much money he wanted?’

  ‘I did ask. Then he said that if he got twenty million he was prepared to let it go.’

  ‘Okay,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to write an official report about this. For making unlawful threats.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. Mind you, he did say just before he left that he assumed our conversation would stay between the two of us. But I don’t care about that. I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my life.’

  ‘That’s the right attitude. You need to tell your boss about this as well. Explain to him that, as your employer, he’s responsible for your safety. I’m thinking of having a word with him myself. There’s no need for you to worry about little Afsan. I’ll make sure he’s got more important things to worry about than messing you about.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Isabella said, suddenly seeming much happier. ‘We must have spent half the afternoon at work watching that video on the net. You’ve never considered going on that television programme? Gladiators?’

  ‘No,’ Annika said, shaking her head. ‘Never.’

  ‘Why not? You’d wipe the floor with them.’

  ‘That’s why,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I’m the sort of person who can’t do pretend fighting.’

  109

  In the beginning, there were three Ibrahim brothers. Afsan’s elder brother, Farshad, was five years older than him, and his little brother, Nasir, was five years younger. Now there’s only Afsan himself. His older brother was murdered by the police. The police are bad people. The one who murdered his brother was the worst of the lot. He was a superintendent called Evert Bäckström. He had shot Farshad, shot him up badly, and, when he was in hospital, fighting for his life, another policeman had thrown him out of the window of his room. And Farshad had died, and the man behind everything that happened was Superintendent Bäckström. He was the one who planned it. Who had decided what was going to happen.

  The Hells Angels had murdered his younger brother, Nasir. They were just as bad as the Christian crusaders who had tried to kill all righteous men like him a thousand years ago. The one who had murdered his younger brother was called Fredrik Åkare. He had murdered his little brother in such a way that not even Afsan’s prayers could grant him peace. Fredrik Åkare, he was the worst of all the men who had helped to murder Nasir.

  There were friends, and there were enemies, and all a real man’s life was ultimately about was being able to tell the difference between them. Living life as the friend of your friends and the enemy of your enemies, and if it turned out to be the case that he was only able to destroy two of his enemies, the choice was obvious. He was willing to give his own life if he could take Bäckström’s and Åkare’s from them.

  There were also friends. He had many friends, several of whom he was prepared to lay down his life for. All his faithful brothers, all the righteous brothers who had chosen the same path as him and had chosen to live their lives alongside him. He also had an inheritance from his elder brother, Farshad, to pass on in such a way that it honoured both his brother and him and, so far, he had managed that well. His friends respected him and his enemies feared both him and his men. The group of brothers founded by Farshad and now led by him: the Brotherhood of the Ibrahims.

  There were also men who weren’t like him and his soldiers but who had still chosen to do him big favours, the sort demanded by life in Sweden, and one such man who had meant a lot to him was his legal advisor, Thomas Eriksson, who, in terms of the actual work he did, was as important to him as his real brothers. Never mind that he had been handsomely rewarded for it, and that he, like all the others of his kind, had demanded their reward in money, and not in the sight of God.

  Now he had been murdered, and anyone who knew anything knew that Åkare and his crusaders were responsible. The fact that the police had given Superintendent Bäckström the job of finding and punishing the murderers merely showed that they had been in league with each other right from the start.

  Everything had its time. Including revenge, and now was the time. High time for revenge, before his enemies got the idea that he, Afsan Ibrahim, was as weak as a woman, and that he wasn’t worthy of passing on Farshad’s inheritance.

  110

  Ten days ago, his life had changed. He had gone to the police to tell them about a man they were looking for, because they thought the man had murdered a well-known lawyer. Now he himself was on the run, in fear of his life, and if it hadn’t been for his old schoolfriend Omar, he may very well have been murdered already. At least, that was how Omar had described what had happened.

  Almost a week ago, he had left his flat out in Kista, as well as his job, and he’d even thrown his mobile away. Omar had sorted out a new place for him to stay. A flat out in Flemingsberg, on the south side of Stockholm, where he was among friends and could feel safe. Omar had also given him more money than he’d ever had in his whole life – whatever use that was to him, seeing as Omar preferred him not to leave the flat, even to go shopping, sit at a café or so much as go for a walk.

  Okay, so he wasn’t exactly suffering. The flat he lived in with Omar was three times the size of his own place. It had everything he could want: flat-screen televisions
with hundreds of channels, sound systems, big, soft leather sofas, a jacuzzi and a steam sauna in the larger of the two bathrooms. More food and drink than he could stuff himself with. Omar could sort everything out. He just had to say. Girls, drink, weed, even Swedish girls and heavier stuff, if that’s what he wanted. But all Ara wanted was to get away from there.

  At first he had thought of going abroad until the whole thing had calmed down. Go to Thailand for a couple of months, to get a bit of rest and have a good think about what he was going to do when he eventually returned to his old life and everything had gone back to normal. But even that was impossible now. The murderers weren’t the only ones looking for him – the police were too. According to Omar, they’d put out an alert for him, and the moment he tried to board an international flight he’d find himself in a cell in Solna police station instead. So he had to wait until Omar had sorted out a new passport for him. A good passport, Swedish. Omar needed a few more days to get all the pieces in place so that Ara could get out of Sweden safely. A good Swedish passport took time, he explained. But sure, if he wanted to travel as a nigger, Omar could drive him to the airport within an hour.

  Ara just nodded. There was a lot of sense in what Omar said. Which just left him with everything he had been given in place of his previous life. A large, expensive flat instead of a home with his own bed to sleep in, a life of idleness shut inside four walls instead of a job to go to. A new mobile that must have cost thousands of kronor, on which he could do everything he used to do on his computer. As long as he didn’t call anyone he knew and needed to talk to. More money than he had ever had. That he couldn’t use. That he didn’t even need to use, seeing as Omar kept paying the whole time.

  He had done a lot of thinking about his old friend Omar. How helpful he was being, and not least the fact that he seemed to know more about what had happened to him and his life than he himself knew. In the end he had asked him. How, for instance, did Omar know that he had contacted the police to tell them what he had seen that night when he almost ran over a murderer in his taxi?