Life Deluxe (25 page)

He thought of the guy he had met at the Side Track Bar a few days ago. Mats. But no, that was a regular old one-night stand. Mats didn’t awaken any dreams of a quiet life in the country.

The apartment was on Surbrunnsgatan. Probably belonged to Torsfjäll’s unit in the force somehow. The last time, they had met in an apartment on Gärdet, across town. According to the police chief, the force had access to a number of apartments in different parts of the city to use for informants, infiltrators, witnesses, and other loose pieces of different puzzles who needed to live in undisclosed locations for a while. Since
there was a constant rotation, they always kept a few apartments empty in case they would need them. They were good meeting places.

Hägerström was standing in front of the door to the apartment. It said
JANSSON
on the mail slot. That was Sweden’s most common last name, according to some statistic Hägerström had read at some point. He rang the doorbell.

Torsfjäll opened.

The inspector was dressed in light brown chinos and, as usual, an impeccably ironed shirt. Today he was also wearing a tie in a loud purple paisley. It didn’t look like it was of particularly good quality—it didn’t shine in a way that suggested 100 percent silk. Hägerström knew you could never be certain if a tie was nice, but you could always tell when it wasn’t nice. What’s more, ties that were too loud were ridiculous, at least on police inspectors.

Torsfjäll smiled. His teeth were even whiter than the last time they had seen each other. He must use some sort of bleaching system.

The apartment was sparsely furnished, just like the other places where they had met. Actually, the apartments all pretty much had the same decorating job—they must’ve gotten a bulk discount at IKEA. A forty-six-inch superflat flat-screen TV was hanging on the wall. Hägerström was surprised that the police had splurged on such an expensive piece of equipment, but he assumed it was often the person living here’s best friend. If you had snitched, you probably wanted to stay indoors all day.

Torsfjäll asked him about his drive and commented on the death of the Yugo boss. Radovan Kranjic had been blown to pieces in the middle of Östermalm—according to Torsfjäll, the incident could lead to more violence in the criminal underworld.

Hägerström wanted to get right to the point.

“He’s starting to open up.”

The inspector smiled and squinted. It was doubtful if Torsfjäll was able to see anything at all when he laughed.

“Tell me,” he said. “I’m on the edge of my seat.”

Hägerström smiled back.
A quiet, relaxed smile
, he thought. At least he had made some headway in the operation.

“He’s starting to use me.”

“Good, very good. So it worked.”

“Exactly. You already know what he did in order for me to get Abdi Husseini transferred. We agreed on fifteen thousand. I asked how I
would be paid. JW said that was part of the deal, that I’d have to take care of the payment myself.”

Torsfjäll was beaming. Hägerström had already told him parts of this, but the inspector seemed to like hearing it told more than once.

“He gave me an e-mail address and an eight-digit code. The following day I sent an e-mail with the number combination and my bank account information in Sweden. The address was [email protected]. I got a reply an hour later, saying that money would be transferred from an account with Arner Bank & Trust in the Bahamas, via another account with the Liechtensteinische Landesbank. And abracadabra, four days later, there was fifteen thousand kronor in my SEB account.”

“Whose was the Bahamas account? Did you get any info on that?”

“Unfortunately, no. But in my account statement it said, ‘Furniture.’ ”

“Which means?”

“JW said it was in case I was asked questions about it. I was to say that I’d sold a piece of furniture to a private buyer through an ad online.”

“Who?”

“I was supposed to say that I didn’t know the buyer’s name. That it was just someone who saw my ad and came to my house and picked up a couch. Apparently he has ads ready in case there’s any hassle.”

Hägerström didn’t need to consult his notes. He remembered all the dates and times like a robot. Omar Abdi Husseini had been transferred to Tidaholm a few days later. On top of that, Hägerström had made sure to smuggle in a new cell phone to JW—tapped, yes, but he didn’t know that. JW was pleased. Even other COs had come up to Hägerström and pointed out how the guy had gotten noticeably sunnier.

Torsfjäll said, “You’re his new mule now—good. But the phone didn’t end up as we’d intended, right? He must’ve switched it out, maybe for another phone. All we’re getting is calls from some other inmate right now. Someone running cocaine deals outside the walls, sure. But if we grab him in a sloppy way, JW will understand that the phone is tapped.”

Hägerström nodded. It was a shame that it hadn’t worked.

He detailed how JW had approached him in the chow hall a few days ago. He had kept it all very discreet. No big gestures or strong words, just a wink. Then he had asked if Hägerström wanted to stop by later.

He dropped by JW’s cell that afternoon. JW was sitting with his laptop open and the schoolbooks in front of him, as usual. The other
inmates called him the bookworm—it was clear why. JW pushed the door shut when Hägerström came in.

Hägerström paused dramatically in his tale. The inspector was sitting stock still, eyes glued on Hägerström.

“First we shot the shit for a while. He likes clothes and shoes, especially British shoes, Crockett & Jones, Church, and stuff like that. So we talked leather soles.”

Torsfjäll opened his mouth. “He likes clothes? Isn’t that a little …”

The inspector looked meaningfully at Hägerström, eyes glittering. Hägerström knew how that sentence was meant to be finished. He glared at the inspector.

Torsfjäll just grinned.

Hägerström continued his story. He had continued to talk about his family and background. JW was obviously impressed. But what was more important was that Hägerström had made JW understand that he was ready to run errands for him. When they finished making small talk, JW had asked him for a favor. He needed to deliver certain information to a certain person. Nothing complicated. JW wanted to go about it in a new way this time, and he would give Hägerström two thousand for his trouble.

Hägerström asked what it was about. “Numbers,” JW said. “Just a lot of numbers.”

“So he asked me what kind of cell phone I had. I described the model and stuff. We leave our private cell phones in the locker room. But he asked me to bring a SIM card the following day. You know, there is just a tiny bit of metal in those cards, and according to my analyses, they don’t set off the metal detectors. I bought a new SIM card and put it in my wallet, just to be on the safe side. You always take that out before you go through the metal detectors anyway.”

Hägerström could see the situation in front of him while he was telling the story. The guard CO’s happy face when they greeted each other. His name was Magnus and he probably wanted to become a cop, like so many others in the Department of Corrections. Hägerström experienced a slight sting of nervousness when he passed through the metal detector. Sure, the worst thing that could happen was that he got fired from the job.

Hägerström continued the story.

“The entire system is based on a certain trust for the staff, so it takes a lot for them to do some kind of in-depth check-up on someone. I was
able to bring the SIM card in, and at one point when I was alone on the block, I went to JW’s cell. He inserted it into his computer, which has a special reader for memory cards and SIM cards. Ten seconds later he gave the card back to me and explained what I was supposed to do.” Hägerström took a deep breath. That was how it had begun. And that was how he began to understand how JW had worked with the previous mule, Christer Starre.

Hägerström asked JW how it was possible for him to have all his information on the computer—didn’t anyone check it or ask questions? JW laughed and said, “Let’s put it this way, the COs don’t have the sharpest computer skills. They don’t even understand the difference between Word and Excel, so how are they supposed to understand the difference between school documents and real documents? I’m studying economics at a distance, remember.”

“So that’s how that trickster does it,” Torsfjäll said. “It’s a mystery to me that the Department of Corrections permits inmates to have computers at all. But that they also allow computers with those memory card readers is just completely incomprehensible.”

“Yes, you might say that. But it still takes a crooked screw for it to work. Visits are monitored much more closely with handheld metal detectors and, sometimes, body searches. And he can get only certain information this way. I think he conveys most of it through simple verbal communication to the visitors he has. We’ve looked them up.”

“I assume you’re making copies of everything?” Torsfjäll asked.

Now it was Hägerström’s turn to make a joke, “Is the pope Catholic? But there are problems. The information is encrypted.”

The inspector chuckled. “Okay. You can send it to me for analysis. The national forensic lab knows how to handle that kind of thing. And worst case scenario, we’ll have to send it to the Brits.”

Hägerström nodded.

“I was asked to deliver the actual memory card to a person at the Central Station. A man in his thirties. He said I would get it back the next day. I followed him, of course.”

“Exemplary.”

“He led me to an accounting firm on Södermalm. MB Accounting Consultant AB, formerly a division of Rusta Finances, Inc. The company is controlled by a man named Mischa Bladman. The accounting firm has a number of midsize companies as clients. Including Building Plus AB, KÅFAB, and Claes Svensson AB. But also the Demolition
Experts in Nälsta AB and Saturday’s AB, which previously owned Clara’s Kitchen & Bar and Diamond Catering. Does that ring any bells?”

Torsfjäll’s smile grew wider and wider with every company name Hägerström listed. Hägerström almost had to cover his eyes in order not to be blinded.

“Of course it rings bells. The last companies you named are in some way connected with the deceased Mr. Radovan Kranjic. Not completely unexpected, but still very interesting.”

“Exactly. And the fact that he was just murdered doesn’t make it any less interesting.”

“We’ve got to put a tail on Bladman.”

“And we ought to get permission to put a wiretap in the visiting room.”

“Get permission? We don’t need to do that. I’ve already put ears on that, just so you know.”

Hägerström balked: Why hadn’t he mentioned that earlier?

“And now,” Torsfjäll continued, “I’m going to plant hidden recording devices on that accounting firm too. What you’ve told me is probably enough to get permission.”

Hägerström noticed how Torsfjäll phrased it: “is
probably
enough.”

There was something to the rumors about the inspector. Torsfjäll didn’t hesitate to get creative with the rules.

Since Dad’s murder: the worst hours she’d ever had to suffer through. The most unbearable, sorrowful, worst seconds she’d ever been forced to breathe. There’d already been too many seconds of desperate longing.

And it wouldn’t end.

She was going in for another round of questioning at the police station later today.

Right now she was just sitting in her room. Thinking about the meeting at the hospital. Stefanovic’s attitude was bothering her. He was trying to lay down the law and seize control. That was wrong.

Who could she trust now? The cops she’d met didn’t give a shit about her. And even less about Dad. The last time she’d been there, it’d felt like a comedy—they’d acted like real pigs. She was planning on taking Goran’s advice, recording the interrogations from now on. And the economic crime suits who’d come to their house only wanted to raze Dad’s business empire.

Certain people in Sweden couldn’t deal with the fact that someone had succeeded the way Dad had. It was okay for people who were born outside Scandinavia to become fantastic soccer players or track runners. To run pizza places, successful dry cleaning businesses, max a restaurant chain—that was also expected. To sing well and break through on
Swedish Idol
—that was tolerable. But that someone owned companies of the magnitude that Dad’d done—that wasn’t even on the map. Some things were simply not acceptable. But it was sick that society couldn’t even show a deceased family man some respect. Natalie remembered what Dad always used to say:
“There is no justice. So we have to create our own.”

It was true—there was no justice. The police ought to be supporting the family. Searching for the murderer, protecting Natalie and Mom. Instead: society was pissing on everything that resembled honor. Justice, you had to take care of that on your own.

Just like Dad’d always said.