MemoRandom: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  “Do you remember any specifics about what you were working on?” Molnar leaned forward slightly.

  “Of course. I recruit and handle CIs. Tip-offs, secret sources, people who might be useful to us.”

  Sarac put his hand to his forehead. The spider’s legs were all around his head, laying siege to his brain. A faint buzzing sound that he thought at first came from the fluorescent lights in the ceiling started to fill his head, making Molnar’s words indistinct.

  “And you’re very good at it, David. In fact you’re the best handler I’ve ever come across. Myself included. Professional, ambitious, loyal, always reliable. And you know exactly how to read people. It’s actually a bit uncanny. You seem to have a sixth sense for how to find a way in, how to get people to trust you with their deepest—”

  Secrets.

  Something suddenly flashed into Sarac’s head. A brief glimpse of a parked car. A dark color, a BMW, or possibly a Mercedes?

  “I left the Intelligence Unit in early 2012 when I was offered the job of being in charge of Special Operations. But you and I carried on working together closely. You did my old job better than I ever did. Your CIs were the best, and there’s no question that they gave us the best information.”

  Molnar’s words were blurring together. The image in Sarac’s head suddenly got clearer. He’s sitting inside the car, at the wheel, or possibly in the backseat? His perspective keeps switching, seems to change the whole time. A thickset man with a shaved head gets into the front passenger seat. He brings a smell of cigarette smoke with him into the car, and something else as well. The smell of fear.

  “It was after that operation that Bergh and, indirectly, Kollander, basically gave you carte blanche to do as you liked. You really don’t remember any of this? It was all over the papers, Kollander and the district commissioner even appeared on television to bask in the glory.”

  Sarac didn’t answer. All he could manage was a little shake of the head.

  “Then you started work on a top-secret project. With one particular contact.”

  “Janus . . .” Sarac mumbled.

  Molnar didn’t respond, unless Sarac’s headache had affected his hearing. Suddenly everything was completely quiet, a perfect, dry absence of sound, with the exception of his own heartbeat. He tried to conjure up the image of the man in the car. Tried to see his face. But the only thing that appeared was a pattern, a snake in black ink, curling up from beneath a collar. A faint sound, growing louder. The car’s chassis buckling, protesting in torment. Then a sudden collision.

  Sarac jerked and woke up. “Th-the accident,” he muttered. “Tell me . . .”

  Molnar was silent for a few moments. Ran his tongue over his even front teeth.

  “Please, Peter. I need to know.” Sarac put his hand on Molnar’s arm. Molnar bit his bottom lip and seemed to be thinking.

  “You called me from your cell,” he began. “Your speech was slurred and you weren’t making much sense. You wouldn’t tell me what was going on, just that something bad had happened and that you were in trouble. We dropped everything and set out to meet you. But when we got to the meeting place, all we could see were the taillights of your car.”

  Molnar’s voice drifted off again.

  “. . . impossible to catch up. You were driving like you had the devil himself in the back of the car.”

  Sarac was back in the parked car. The ink snake on the man’s neck suddenly came to life, moving in time with the man’s voice. “I was thinking of suggesting a deal.” His hands are rough but his voice surprisingly high. Almost like a child’s.

  “Your secrets in exchange for mine.” The man grins, trying to sound tough even though he reeks of fear. His leather jacket creaks as he turns his body. “Well, what do you say? Have you got a deal?”

  Outside it’s started to snow. Heavy snowflakes, falling thickly. Settling on the windows like a dense white blanket until the buildings of Gamla stan are hidden from view. Suddenly Sarac gets the impression that there’s another person in the car. Someone hiding in the darkness of the backseat. He catches a glimpse of a familiar pair of eyes in the rearview mirror, stubble, and a raised hood that shades the face. The devil himself.

  A sweet, chemical smell fills the car. The smell is very familiar; it’s easily recognizable. Gun grease.

  He catches sight of the pistol, sees it raised to the back of the man’s head, where the snake is still slithering. He holds his breath as . . .

  • • •

  The bang made Sarac open his eyes. Molnar was leaning over him, his hands about an inch in front of Sarac’s face.

  “David, can you hear me?!” He clapped his hands in front of Sarac’s nose, forcing him to blink. Sarac opened his mouth and swallowed a mixture of saliva and air. He coughed and gasped for air as his heart raced in panic. A machine was bleeping close by, and there was the sound of running in the corridor.

  “You blacked out.” Molnar’s voice sounded shaky. “Your face went all blue, you scared the shit out of me, David.” He put his hand on Sarac’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “You’re not thinking of dying on me, are you? Not after all the work we did cutting you out of the wreckage.” Molnar’s tone was joking, but there was a hint of anxiety there too.

  Sarac grabbed hold of his hand. “J-Janus,” he stammered. “Everything’s fucked.” The lights in the ceiling flickered. He gasped for air again. Terror was clutching at his chest, and the spider’s legs had hold of his head. “We’ve got to find him, Peter,” he panted. “It’s all my fault . . .”

  The hospital staff came storming in, three or four white coats. Maybe more. Sarac felt Molnar being pushed aside, then an oxygen mask was placed over his nose and mouth. Everything started to blur and the room became a mass of pain and colors.

  “. . . a severe migraine attack, but we can’t rule out a further hemorrhage,” Dr. Vestman’s voice said. “We need to get him back to Intensive Care.”

  The bed started to roll, a peculiar feeling. Various figures hovered above him, slipping in and out of his clouded field of vision. White coats, green ones. Faces covered by masks. He thought he could hear a voice. A whisper, close to his right ear, so faint he could hardly hear it.

  Protect the secret, David. You promised!

  The voice blurred into the background. And fell silent.

  After that . . .

  Nothing.

  EIGHT

  It’s all about attitude, Jesper Stenberg thinks. If you just have the right attitude and focus on the right things, you can get through pretty much any challenge.

  He had a framed quotation by Robert Kennedy on the wall. A moving-in gift that Karolina had persuaded the caretakers to put up immediately above the huge desk, just in time for his first day at the department.

  No society can function without a democratically controlled, fair, measured, and powerful justice system. Bobby Kennedy hadn’t hesitated to do what was required of him. He didn’t let himself get distracted by political intrigues. Instead he focused on doing as much good as he could for society. He had aimed at a higher goal.

  Stenberg thought he had made a similar choice. Either he was someone who had driven his fragile lover to suicide, or he was someone who was no longer subjected to the warped whims of a demonstrably sick person. Someone who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Sophie’s suicide had been unavoidable. If it hadn’t been for the happy pills, it would probably have happened a long time ago, without affecting him. But instead she had chosen to kill herself in a fiendishly calculated way, literally trying to take him down with her. A frontal attack on him, his family, and their shared future. The measures he had taken were therefore no more than a form of self-defense. Sophie had tried to destroy him, but he had withstood the attack, even if it had taken almost all of his strength of will.

  He had reversed back down into the garage with Sophie’s body on the hood of his car. He had done his utmost not to meet her g
aze on the other side of the shattered windshield. He parked in the darkest corner of the garage and covered the hood with a tarpaulin he took off a sports car that had been covered up for the winter. Then he had forced himself to leave the scene calmly, resisting the temptation to run for his life.

  He had made the call half an hour later. It took him three attempts before his fingers managed to find the right number in the phone book. Then he had followed instructions, getting a taxi home and disposing of all his clothes, before downing half a bottle of whiskey and falling asleep on the sofa.

  During the days that followed he had felt okay, but the nights were worse. As soon as he shut his eyes Sophie’s shattered face appeared in his head. Staring at him with an accusing look in her eyes, making him wake up with a scream. He had blamed everything on his new job, and the tension of recent weeks. As usual, Karolina was a rock. She listened and comforted him, made him chamomile tea and left her self-help magazines on the kitchen table. It was in one of them he had read that the more the brain got stuck in a particular track, the harder it was to break out of. In other words, you had to make a conscious choice about how you wanted to think about things, and what thoughts you no longer wanted to entertain. And, just a couple of days later, once the shock had subsided, he had decided what thoughts he wanted to have. After that, the nightmares had almost disappeared altogether.

  The police investigation had actually made him stronger. He had read every last line but skipped the photographs of the scene of the accident and the autopsy. Everything was basically true, none of the essential facts were missing. At least nothing that had any effect on the end result.

  In the end she had been found by someone delivering papers. Her body had gone through the windshield of a Volvo that had been parked illegally below the window of her study. Her iPad was on her desk, containing her suicide note. Just a couple of lines about how she couldn’t bear it anymore, that she didn’t want to go back to the clinic. The note had been sent to her father’s work e-mail that same night, just minutes before she was found. Her penthouse apartment also contained plenty of pharmaceuticals, prescribed by doctors both in Sweden and abroad. A chair was found next to the open window, and the front door was locked. The autopsy more or less confirmed what was already clear: death caused by massive trauma, her stomach full of a mixture of pills and alcohol.

  Naturally, Stenberg had called John Thorning to convey his condolences. He had practiced for hours so that the words came out right, in a calm tone of voice, before he dialed the number with trembling hands. But the whole thing had been a huge anticlimax. The call was forwarded to John’s secretary, who told him that Sophie’s father wasn’t taking any calls, even from him. He felt extremely relieved, and almost burst out laughing. After that, his letter of condolence practically wrote itself.

  Our deepest sympathies for your tragic loss . . .

  The funeral had been a quiet affair, with only the closest family present. Suicide wasn’t something that the Thorning family wanted to make a public show of.

  Karolina had naturally organized a tasteful wreath. Lilies to symbolize innocence, white narcissi for friendship and closure. An almost perfect choice.

  And, as always after something ended, new opportunities presented themselves. His plan was already in motion. The need for it was obvious, and discussions were already under way. All they were waiting for was for someone to take the initiative. Someone who had the courage, will, and energy to dare to lead the way.

  The judicial system was hopelessly old-fashioned, a product of the 1950s that had been patched up as time went on, and which stood no chance of meeting the challenges and threats posed by the twenty-first century. You had to look at the situation as a whole and deploy your resources where they could give the greatest reward, instead of spreading them thinly. It was a matter of getting in synch with reality and delivering concrete results that the general public could understand and accept.

  The first move was already made. He had brought in his old colleague Oscar Wallin. He had recruited him and a few hand-picked officers from National Crime to conduct a “special investigation for the Ministry of Justice.” Wallin and Stenberg had worked together in the Hague and were comfortable with each other. They shared the same goals.

  In actual fact, Wallin’s task was simple: Identify the best working practices in the country and bring in the most competent officers. Find out what works in a new, modernized organization, and which people are happy to go along with it. And which ones aren’t.

  He would make enemies, he was perfectly aware of that. The judicial system was full of desk jockeys and filing clerks. Police officers, prosecutors, and judges with smart titles, expense accounts, and large mortgages, but whose contribution to the system was questionable, to say the least. Plenty of them would see an abrupt end to their career paths and would find themselves out in the cold.

  Attitude, he thought once more. It was all about attitude. Seeing the whole picture beyond the details, and not hesitating to make unpleasant decisions.

  The phone on his desk rang. Calls usually went via his secretary, but this was his direct line. It must be Karolina.

  “Stenberg.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Stenberg,” the dry voice said.

  Stenberg stood up sharply, glancing quickly at the door.

  “Y-you mustn’t call me here. All calls are logged.”

  “Don’t worry, this call can’t be traced, I can assure you of that,” the man on the other end of the line said.

  Stenberg gulped and tried to gather his thoughts. “What do you want?”

  “To start with, I’d like to congratulate you on your new job, Minister of Justice. According to the media, your future prospects look very bright.”

  Stenberg didn’t respond.

  “I thought it might be time to discuss recompense for our services. I presume everything was to your satisfaction, Minister? The case has been closed, after all. A lonely, unhappy woman who chose to end her own life.”

  Stenberg took a deep breath. He had been worrying about this call since the week after Sophie’s death, but when a month passed without a word he had almost convinced himself that it wasn’t going to come. Stupid, of course. The man on the other end made his living from providing services of this nature, after all. Stenberg sharpened his voice, trying to sound calm.

  “How much?” he said.

  “Oh, we’re not after money, Minister.”

  Stenberg waited, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Sophie’s shattered face was back in his mind, and he quickly opened his eyes again. He had to get this out of the way, as soon as possible. Otherwise he would never be able to move on.

  “So what do you want?” he said.

  “Oh, nothing much. Just something that the country’s Minister of Justice, the head of the entire Swedish police system, would surely find simple to achieve.”

  “And what might that be?” Stenberg found he was holding his breath.

  “A name,” the man on the other end of the line said. His voice sounded almost amused. “The name of the person concealed behind the code name Janus.”

  NINE

  Atif had said his good-byes. He had dutifully kissed Cassandra on the cheek before handing her the envelope full of dollar bills. The cost of his mother’s nursing home ate up most of his salary, so it wasn’t much. And from the look on Cassandra’s face he could tell that she certainly didn’t think it was enough, regardless.

  He had hugged Tindra for so long that her little knuckles had left marks around his neck. He realized that he didn’t actually want to let go.

  “Why do you have to go, Amu?”

  He had struggled to find a good answer and failed. Cassandra had come to his rescue.

  “Your uncle has to go, darling. He has to go home and look after Grandma. But you can e-mail him if you like. And you can send him one of the lovely drawings you do on your iPad.”

  The thought of the drawings seemed to help, because Tindra had let
go of his neck. Then she stood in the window and waved until he was out of sight.

  He realized he was going to miss her. The intense look in her eyes, the way she put her little hand in his. The way she tilted her head when she disagreed with something. Just like her dad had done at her age. Maybe he should have offered to stay for longer. To spend more time with Tindra. But what sort of example could he be to her? He was pretty sure Cassandra could help him provide an answer to that question. The same example he had been to Tindra’s father. An example that vanished when he was needed most.

  The gym looked pretty smart. It was on the edge of an industrial estate just ten minutes from the suburban station. Judging by the thirty or so cars in the parking lot, it also seemed to have plenty of members. Mostly 4x4s, Honda CR-Vs, various models of Volvo XC, and a few other fairly pricey cars. Almost all of them were typical mom cars, presumably from the well-to-do residential areas just a mile or so away. Much smarter than targeting the young lads in the suburbs who couldn’t afford the membership fees. And much less trouble too, of course. Nice and peaceful, a steady income, that was presumably what Adnan had been thinking.

  Atif didn’t really know why he had decided to come this way. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Even if it wasn’t particularly far from the cemetery, he had no desire to go back there again, so this would have to do as his final farewell to Adnan. The dream his brother never managed to achieve. In some ways it was a fitting place for a good-bye.

  He steered the rental car into the lot. He tried to look through the big panoramic windows, but the sun filters meant he couldn’t see much. It didn’t really matter. He parked in a vacant space, switched off the engine, and looked at the time. He sat there for a minute or so, forcing himself to think about Adnan.

  He tried to persuade himself that he’d done all he could. Adnan had lived his own life, made his own decisions, and paid the price for them. Besides, they were very different, not just in age but in all manner of other ways. Unlike him, Adnan had been good at school, was liked by everyone, the favorite child. He had had opportunities that Atif had never had. Atif was grieving for his little brother, of course he was. But there were clearly also more emotions than grief alone. Guilt, that one was easy to identify. Anger too. He was also able to put his finger on a vague desire for revenge, even if he was keeping that under control. But there was another feeling there as well, one he was ashamed of, and would prefer not to put a name to, even in his thoughts.