Ultimatum

by Anders de la Motte

  Another silence, and for a couple of seconds she thought the man had hung up. Then he spoke again.

  “I’m sorry David Sarac is dead. But I had nothing to do with that. The fact is that I admired him in many ways.”

  “Was that why you bribed one of the nurses to smuggle him out from the nursing home? To express your admiration? The nurse took a surreptitious photograph of you, so we know it was you who organized the whole thing.”

  The man who had called himself Hunter sighed.

  “Oh, well, that’s what happens when you’re forced to improvise. Good help is hard to find. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of choice. Thank you for telling me this; I’ve been wondering how you tracked me down ever since I spoke to your colleague the other day. Amante—that was his name, wasn’t it?”

  “You met Sarac in your little hideout in Sollentuna,” Julia said. “He gave you his passport and possibly something else. In return you told him something, something that led to his death.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you might as well give up,” Hunter said drily. “Sarac knew what he was getting into. He was fully aware that things might end the way they did. I suspect that part of him was hoping that they would. He was in a bad way: his demons were getting the better of him. It took an immense effort of will just for him to come to our meeting.”

  “What was the meeting about? What sort of deal did you come to?”

  There was a click on the line, a faint electrical sound that echoed against the background hiss.

  “We exchanged secrets. He confirmed something I had long suspected regarding one of his informants. Something that reassured my employers and made it possible for me to resume my work.”

  “Which employers?”

  Hunter snorted, a mixture of a laugh and an exhalation. “You hardly expect me to tell you that, do you? Let’s just say that they’re the sort of people who don’t like having their affairs disrupted, especially not by undercover police informants, and who are prepared to go to great lengths to protect their interests. Thanks to Sarac, I was finally able to persuade them that their business interests were no longer threatened and that I had therefore fulfilled my mission.”

  “You filmed him, didn’t you?”

  “That was what we agreed.”

  “And in return you gave him one or more photographs. And perhaps something else?”

  “Sarac was out for justice. That was what Skarpö was all about, even if it took me a while to realize that. Sarac wanted to punish everyone who had acted unjustly, himself included. He hadn’t expected to survive, and the fact that he did was a great disappointment to him. But there was one other person who evaded their responsibilities, someone Sarac wasn’t aware of. I told him and gave him the opportunity to put that right. One last chance to take revenge on the person who had betrayed him.”

  There was another crackle on the line, and Julia had to wait a moment before asking the question she needed an answer to.

  “What did you tell him? And who or what was the photograph of?”

  “I’ve already revealed more than enough. Sarac made a deal to find out a secret, and it cost him his life. There’s an awful lot at stake here, far more than you can imagine. You should be careful. Don’t trust anyone. And as far as Frank Hunter and Bloodhound are concerned, the trail ends here.”

  Another click, louder than the others. The background hiss was suddenly gone, replaced by mute silence.

  “Hunter?” Julia said. She could tell from the echo that the call had been disconnected.

  She dialed back and waited for the cool receptionist to answer. But instead she heard a three-note signal and an automated error message.

  This number is no longer in use.

  • • •

  Amante put two mismatched coffee cups down on the marble counter. He stirred his for a while as he absorbed the phone call with Hunter.

  “Do you believe him?” he said. “I mean, in theory it could all be a smoke screen. A way for Hunter to confuse us while he covers his tracks. It could still very easily be him who killed Sarac.”

  “Well, in theory you’re right,” Julia said. She couldn’t help mimicking his tone slightly. “If this were a normal murder investigation, we’d issue a warrant for Frank Hunter’s arrest. Go through Interpol and try to get him extradited from Belgrade or wherever he’s hiding at the moment. But I don’t think Hunter, or whatever his real name is, is the sort of man who’d let himself be found. That was pretty much what he implied right at the end of the call. And . . .”

  “This isn’t a normal murder investigation,” Amante filled in. “So what do we do now, Julia? If we dismiss Hunter as the perpetrator, that really only leaves one possibility: the person Sarac sent the e-mail and photograph to. The person whose secret he threatened to reveal. Is it really completely impossible to trace the recipient?”

  “Yes. I called back and double-checked after I’d received the letter, but the IT guy was completely certain on that point. The e-mail isn’t going to lead us to the murderer. Sarac sent the letter and picture on the twenty-sixth and presumably received a reply by the twenty-eighth at the latest, when the computer was used for the last time. Shortly after that he was murdered. But we still don’t have any idea who he sent the e-mail to or what the picture or pictures were of. Nor how Sarac and the murderer met. They could actually have arranged a formal meeting somewhere.”

  “Unless the killer found him some other way,” Amante muttered.

  Julia’s phone started to vibrate. Pärson’s number. She ignored it.

  “Work,” she said. “We’ve still got our hands full with Abu Hamsa and Kassab.”

  Amante scratched one of his wrists, then the other, and it suddenly occurred to Julia that he had used her first name.

  “We’ve made a lot of progress,” she said. “More than we could have imagined. But in some murder cases you have to pause for breath. Let things settle while you wait for an opening to appear.”

  Her phone fell silent. Amante went over to the window and looked out.

  “If we believe what Hunter said about Sarac, then presumably we have to believe the rest too.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “That bit about us being in danger.”

  “He didn’t say that. He said we should be careful.”

  “That call, then. Why did it end so abruptly?”

  “Hunter hung up. Didn’t want to say anything else.”

  Amante shook his head. He went on looking at the street outside.

  “It could just as easily have been cut off by someone else. Someone who was listening to your conversation and didn’t want Hunter to say more. You heard what he said. That there’s a lot at stake. More than we can imagine. Put that together with the rest of it. Sarac’s murder being hushed up, the way his body was moved. If Hunter’s right, then we’re not safe.”

  All of a sudden Julia wasn’t sure what to say. “Well . . . I don’t think we should read too much into—”

  Her phone began to vibrate once more. Pärson again. Maybe she was being forgiven, unless he just wanted her to go in and continue mapping Abu Hamsa. Either way, she couldn’t afford to antagonize him any further. And Amante’s behavior was making her feel uneasy.

  “I’ve got to take this,” she said. But Amante didn’t seem to be listening. Instead he just went on scanning the street below.

  Twenty-Five

  The whole thing was really almost ridiculously simple, Natalie thought as she reversed her Golf into one of the spaces next to the garage’s service department.

  The woman was in the phone book, and once you had a name and address you only had to contact the tax office to find out their ID number. Completely anonymously, and without any requirement to explain why you wanted it. The Swedish principle of freedom of information at its best.

>   From then on it had been pretty straightforward. Make a few online applications for credit cards, which she’d done on Monday, then allow time for them to be processed, then a bit more for the post. According to her calculations, four or five days in total ought to be enough, which meant that from the day after tomorrow she’d have to be in position out in Gärdet when the mail was delivered.

  Best to wait until the mailman had disappeared inside the neighboring building. Then all she had to do was riffle through the bags of mail on his bicycle and grab the envelopes containing the credit cards. The day after, you did the same thing again to get hold of the letters containing the PIN codes, then all you had to do was select a suitable cash dispenser and voilà: you’d got yourself your very own printing press for banknotes.

  But, in comparison to the payout, the risk of being caught was a bit too high for her taste. You’d be found out if the mailman happened to come out of the building early, or if the cash machine had been upgraded and fitted with a security camera. That was why she’d decided to give up this sort of fraud and had instead applied herself to other, considerably more profitable projects that entailed a smaller risk. That had gone better than expected, at least until Oscar Wallin had worked out what she was doing. And it was thanks to him that she was now forced to go back to her old ways again.

  She hung around outside the building to get a glimpse of the woman when she was over at Gärdet the previous day to check the postman’s times and routines. She didn’t really know why. Maybe it was to salve her conscience, to persuade herself that she’d change her plans if her intended victim looked like a nice old lady. But she was spared all that. The old bag had cold eyes and a sharp set to her mouth that was easy to recognize.

  Natalie got out of the car and went over to the cabinet containing the car care implements without hurrying. This could take a while.

  • • •

  She’d had time to wash and wax the Golf, pump the tires, check the oil, vacuum the whole inside, and read half of Aftonbladet before the first cops appeared at the garage. Two fit, slightly too-handsome guys in cargo trousers, boots, and hooded jackets who parked their anonymous dark-colored car around the back of the building. They walked purposefully through the door and headed straight for the restrooms. All detectives, no matter how talented they were, needed TLC: toilet, lunch, and coffee. All she’d had to do was work out where the nearest garage to Cassandra’s apartment was, then hang around waiting for nature to take its course.

  Barely ten minutes later the men came out again, visibly relieved and with a plastic bag containing emergency ­provisions—sweets, she guessed—and each clutching a mug of takeaway coffee. They stood and chatted for a while next to their car, made a couple of calls, probably to their respective other halves, while they drank the coffee. Neither of them gave her more than a cursory glance.

  A couple of years ago that would have annoyed her. She looked a bit too ordinary, blended into the background, as one drunken guy had once told her. His words had hurt her deeply, and she put a lot of effort into trying to change. She spent hours in the gym, tried all manner of diets and beauty tips. But eventually she came to appreciate her ordinariness. Not standing out had its advantages. The way no one could describe what you looked like, even if she’d been standing right next to them, maybe actually exchanged a few words. Neither the woman behind the till in the garage nor the two slightly too-handsome cops would remember her, she was sure of that. Nor her poor little Golf, either, which would make it fairly easy to follow them back to the place they were watching the apartment from and mark it on a map. She needed to know exactly where all the cops were when it came to the third stage of the plan she and Atif had agreed on.

  First identify the locations of all the cops, which was what she was currently doing, then find a way to communicate with Cassandra and prepare her, and then get them out of the apartment and take them straight to Arlanda Airport with their new passports.

  Atif had basically accepted all her suggestions and only made minor adjustments that were all well reasoned. She actually liked his blunt way of expressing himself. And he wasn’t exactly unattractive. His body was sinewy and in decent shape, and all the scars weren’t as off-putting as he seemed to think. She got the impression that Atif Kassab didn’t have a lot of experience when it came to women, or at least not with relationships. He was actually rather shy, which was kind of cute in a way. It was almost a shame that he was fifteen years older than she was. As well as being a wanted murderer, the voice of common sense said in her ear. Because you’re not about to turn into some prison bitch living under the ridiculous delusion that dangerous men can be redeemed by the power of unconditional love, are you?

  She shook the thought off and folded her newspaper. The break seemed to be over, because the handsome cops slowly got back in their car and went back the way they had come. Following them was easy. The two men saw themselves as hunters on the trail of their prey. It didn’t cross their minds that their role had just been usurped by a red-haired young woman in a battered old Golf whom they had barely noticed, even though she had been sitting just ten meters away from them.

  Twenty-Six

  Dinner was over, coffee had been served, and the big band had started to play. Over by the stage, where the thick carpet had been replaced by shiny parquet flooring, a dozen couples were already dancing, and in the rest of the room party members were hobnobbing with a mixture of elite businessmen, senior civil servants, and general directors. Sweaty handshakes, alcohol breath, backslaps, and slightly too-loud laughter.

  “Jesper, lovely to see you.” The prime minister pressed Stenberg’s hand, fixed his watery eyes on him, and would surely have grasped him by the elbow if his left hand hadn’t been busy with his cane. “How are you? Is everything under control?”

  “Absolutely. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Good. Listen, I’d like a chat with you. Find out a bit more about how you and Karl-Erik see the future. But that will have to wait until next week. I think we can grant ourselves the luxury of relaxing a bit this evening, don’t you? Set aside any thought of problems and setbacks.”

  “Definitely.” Stenberg held his boss’s gaze firmly without giving away how disconcerting he found the man’s power games. Obviously the point of what he had just said was the opposite of its apparent meaning. Keeping him on tenterhooks, showing him who was in charge. That he couldn’t take anything for granted.

  The prime minister let go of his hand. “Have a good evening. If it weren’t for my knee, I’d have been hoping for a dance with your beautiful wife. Karolina really is a gem.” He gestured toward Karolina, whose back was visible a short distance away, then patted Stenberg on the shoulder and limped back to his table, where his own wife, freshly permed and dressed to the nines, was waiting with the rest of the old man’s entourage.

  Stenberg continued toward one of the bars in the corner of the large room, which had been his original goal. He was normally good at this sort of occasion, coached to perfection by Karolina. But this evening his professional but intimate smile wasn’t sitting quite right. His timing was off, his thoughts and mimicry slightly late, like a dubbed film. He kept imagining sly glances and inaudible comments everywhere.

  He had done what he had to, kept his mask in place all the way through dinner, and now all he really wanted was to go home, have a couple of whiskeys, and fall asleep in front of the television. But he knew Karolina would never allow that.

  The hour after coffee is the most important, that’s when you forge real contacts. Doubtless another of Karl-Erik’s many pearls of wisdom that she was so generous about sharing. He had left her with Eva Swensk, engaged in conversation with the recently appointed national police chief while he escaped to fetch drinks. Naturally they already knew each other, presumably from some women’s network. Karolina knew everyone who was worth knowing.

  All this was child’s play to her. Karolin
a had been born into the smart salons of politics, whereas he had had to fight his way into their warm embrace. He had struggled for years, licking his way toward the top and smiling admiringly at plenty of incompetent idiots to get where he was today. He had earned his place in this room, and—unlike most of the people in attendance—had worked his way there rather than plotting a path through the youth movement or quietly and obediently making coffee at thousands of pointless meetings. He had found his own way into the corridors of power and had no intention of leaving them. No intention of letting himself be exiled to a life of anonymity as a lawyer, where the only chance of being noticed would be if some particularly vile suspect picked him as his public defender, or if daytime television wanted to interview him when he eventually published his obligatory autobiography. But a few minutes in the spotlight weren’t enough, not for someone who’d been as close to the top as he had.

  He had been minister of justice for less than a year but had already accomplished more than his predecessor had in the previous seven. Yet there were still plenty of people in the party who treated him like a newcomer. An outsider, a pretty boy with a decent pedigree—that was how they regarded him. An obedient tool who could be exploited for their own aims.

  He caught a glimpse of John Thorning some distance away. To avoid catching his eye, he leaned across the bar and the bartender came over to him at once, as usual. One of the advantages of looking the way he did. Like a winner.

  “Two dry martinis, please!” He turned around to see if he could locate Karolina, but instead he found another woman standing right in front of him. Blonde hair, porcelain skin, green eyes. For a fraction of a second his brain was convinced he was staring at Sophie. Then he realized it was Carina Le­Moine, unofficial leader of the party’s younger phalanx.