Misterioso (10 page)

When he found the address, he pressed the intercom for ComData. A secretary answered, then reluctantly buzzed him in. He walked up two flights of stairs and entered a five-room apartment that had been converted for office use. The secretary was a woman with too much makeup, her hair pulled into a bun. When he showed her his ID, it dripped rain onto her neatly stacked papers, curling the edges.

“Put that away,” she said indignantly.

“Criminal Police. I want to talk to Axel Strandelius.”

“The director is unavailable at the moment. I assume that you don’t have an appointment?”

“You have thirty seconds to tell him that I’m here. After that I’ll just barge in on my own.”

It had worked earlier in the day, and it worked now. A door opened, and an impeccably dressed man in his fifties whose demeanor practically screamed “CEO” showed Hjelm into his office without a word.

“Sara said you’re from the police,” the man said as he sat down behind the desk. “How can I be of service?”

“Are you Axel Strandelius?” asked Hjelm.

“Yes,” said the man, “that’s precisely who I am.”

“Are you a member of the group known as the Order of Skidbladnir?”

Strandelius was silent for a moment. “Now we’re touching on proprietary information.”

Hjelm recognized his choice of words. “I know the rules. The only proprietary information has to do with the rituals. Membership is public information.”

“Except that the group in question is not yet public.”

“You know why I’m here. I see there a copy of
Dagens Nyheter
, over there
Svenska Dagbladet
, and here
Dagens Industri
. All three have the story on the front page. This isn’t some kind of game or police harassment; it’s a matter of life and death. Your life and your death. Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén were part of the little separatist group that about six months ago broke away from the Order of Mimir. That means that you too are at risk.”

Strandelius clearly hadn’t thought that far and shrank a couple of inches in his chair. “Good God. But the Order of Mimir is the most innocuous organization you could imagine. There couldn’t possibly be anyone who—”

“The strongest link we have between the two men who were murdered two days apart and in the exact same way is this little Order of Skidbladnir. Both of them belonged to the group, which has a total membership of twelve. Or had. That goes a long way in my book. There are two questions I want you to answer. One: What were the driving forces behind the secession?
Two: Which members were most fiercely opposed to the secession?”

Strandelius paused to think. He was a data guy. He spent a couple of minutes organizing and analyzing. When he replied, he used the enumeration that Hjelm had used.

“One: Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén were the driving forces, but the idea actually came from Rickard Franzén. He was probably also the strongest advocate in getting the idea pushed through. At about the same level as Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén was Johannes Norrvik. First and foremost Franzén, then Daggfeldt, Strand-Julén, and Norrvik. The rest of us just thought it sounded exciting and joined in. Two: I’m afraid I can’t help you much in that area. There was a general undercurrent of opposition, which the otherworldly Clöfwenhielm never even noticed. But I think it was Franzén who took the brunt of it. He would at least know who most opposed the whole idea. If, and I say
if
, this has something to do with the murders, then Franzén would most likely be the next victim.”

“Very nicely summarized,” said Hjelm and then said goodbye.

The rain was now gone. It didn’t just
seem
to be gone; it was in fact gone. The violent spring weather had sculpted whitecaps on the surface of Saltsjön.

April weather
, thought Hjelm.

He was stopped at the red light up near Södermalmstorg, looking across Slussen toward the shape of the Gondolen Restaurant hovering overhead, more like a subway car on the rack rather than an actual gondola.

The hanging gardens of Babylon
, thought Paul Hjelm as the light changed to green.

He moved into the left lane, no doubt unable to avoid the red
light at the next intersection, and turned onto Timmermansgatan.

The locked door had a number code. Annoyed, he punched in a bunch of random numbers. He stood there for two minutes, pressing hundreds of made-up codes. Nothing happened. He took a step back and found himself standing next to a young girl with straggly black hair wearing a leather jacket. She gave him a suspicious look.

“Police,” he said.

“Is that how you solve your cases?” said the girl.

He glared after her as she walked away.

“Yes,” said Hjelm, and went back to wildly punching in numbers. Finally the little red LED lit up, and the lock emitted a faint clicking sound.
My day in a nutshell
, he thought as he stepped inside, found the name on the board posted just inside the door, and went up four flights of stairs.

It said “Lindén” on the mail slot. He rang the bell. Once. Twice. Three times. After the fourth time, a thudding sound was audible from inside, and a blond youth about eighteen opened the door and peered out. A sloppy Champion jogging suit more or less covered his body, and his hair was standing on end.

“Did I get you out of bed?” said Hjelm, holding up his ID. “You’re Jörgen Lindén, right?”

The guy nodded, trying in vain to focus on the ID, which kept flapping back and forth before his eyes. “What’s this about?” Lindén’s voice was groggy with sleep.

“Mass murder,” said Hjelm, pushing past him into the apartment.

“What the hell did you say?” Lindén followed him, stuffing his shirt into his pants. On the sofa was a rumpled blanket. In the other room the bed was meticulously made up.
Two sides of the same coin
, thought Hjelm, resorting to cliché, and opened
the window to let in some fresh air from the tidy back courtyard with small trees and wooden benches.

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,” he said. “Do you always sleep this long?”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘this long.’ I was out late last night.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

Lindén scrupulously folded up the blanket and sat down on the sofa. “I’m unemployed.”

“You seem to be getting by quite nicely on your unemployment checks.”

“What is it you want?”

“I assume that you haven’t read today’s paper?”

“No.”

“Bernhard Strand-Julén was murdered.”

In spite of his youth, Jörgen Lindén was the most experienced of all of the people Hjelm had interviewed that day in terms of dealing with the police. He managed to maintain an expression of vague, innocent confusion, although perhaps his eyes were a shade brighter. The wheels had started to spin in his brain.

“Who?”

“Director Bernhard Strand-Julén. You know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

Hjelm took the postcard showing the highly virile Dionysus out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “Quite a hard-on, don’t you think?”

Lindén looked at the picture without saying a word.

Hjelm went on, “Is this your advertising trademark, or what? Marketing? Do you hand these cards out in the subway?”

Lindén still didn’t speak. He was looking out the window. The storm was making the low-lying cumulus clouds practically race past.

Hjelm stubbornly continued. “So if we flip over the steak, what do we find? Here it says: ‘We’re going now. You can always call.’ And then a phone number that happens to be the same as that one.” Hjelm pointed at the cordless phone next to the window. “But what’s this? There’s more. A little P.S. ‘You’re the biggest Billy-Goat Gruff.’ I think a comparison of this handwriting with that notepad on the phone table will prove very interesting.”

Hjelm sat down in the armchair facing Lindén.

“ ‘And then the big Billy-Goat Gruff rushed at the troll, lifted him on his horns, and flung him in a big arc through the air, hurling him so far that the troll was never seen again. Then the goat ran up to the mountain pasture. There was so much good grass, and the goats grew so fat that they didn’t have the energy to go back home. And if they haven’t lost that fat, then no doubt they’re still up there today.’ ”

Jörgen Lindén still didn’t utter a word.

Hjelm went on: “The land of childhood. I read that story to my children almost ten years ago, every night. I remember every word of it. What sort of troll was it that flew in a big arc through the air and disappeared for good out there on the Swan boat? The troll of poverty? The troll of abstinence? Are you still up there in the mountain pasture?”

Lindén closed his eyes but remained silent.

“My son is only a few years younger than you. At least I hope he is. Answer me right now, or I’m taking you in. What sort of troll was it that the big Billy-Goat Gruff Strand-Julén chased away?”

“Not the troll of poverty, at any rate,” said Lindén glumly. “He didn’t want a repeat. Never wanted to see us again. The cash lasted me a couple of months, no more than that. And drugs are out of the question. I’m clean.”

“No rave parties, no Ecstasy? Like last night?”

“That’s a different story. It’s not addictive.”

“Of course not.” Hjelm leaned back in his chair. “But if you keep working as a prostitute, pretty soon you’re going to need something that
is
addictive. Okay, I don’t have time for this right now. Here’s my most important question: Have you ever performed any services for an executive by the name of Kuno Daggfeldt in Danderyd?”

“I don’t always know their names.”

“Here’s what he looks like,” said Hjelm, holding out a photograph of an imposing man who was struggling to carry his fifty years with dignity, a battle that a couple of days ago had horribly failed.
Nothing exposes vanity more clearly than death
, thought Hjelm, convinced that he was quoting somebody.

“No,” said Lindén. “I don’t recognize him.”

“And you’re a hundred percent sure about that? Take a good look through your internal files.”

“I remember them, believe me. I remember them all.”

“The whole herd of Billy-Goats Gruff? Okay, give me the name of your pimp.”

“Come on—”

“Under other circumstances I would probably have picked you up off the street, lifted you up by the scruff of your neck like a little kitten … and tossed you home to your parents—”

“That would be difficult.”

“—but right now the situation is different. All I’m after is as much information as you can give me about Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén. So I need the name of your little pimp. And I need it now.”

“Do you know what he’ll do to me if he finds out that I’ve squealed?”

“He’ll never find out from me, I can guarantee it.”

“Johan Stake. I don’t know if that’s his real name, and I don’t have any address. Just a phone number.”

Lindén wrote the number on a piece of paper and handed it to Hjelm.

“One last thing: Strand-Julén’s sexual preferences. And be as specific as possible.”

Lindén gave him a pleading look and then started to cry.

The language of intimidation
, thought Hjelm, not sure what he himself was feeling.

A hailstorm pounded the windowpanes for ten long seconds. Then it was gone.

April weather
, thought Hjelm and sneezed loudly.

It was two o’clock by the time he rang the bell of the Nockeby villa. He listened to the first five notes of “Ode to Joy” play three times inside, hating Beethoven’s deafness. Immediately behind the villa, the property dropped down toward Lake Mälaren, at the spot where it was most beautiful. This particular villa was not the most palatial in Nockeby, but it still deserved inclusion in this oasis of a western suburb, upon which the April sun had chosen to cast its fickle light.

The door was finally opened by an old woman, whom Hjelm assumed was the housekeeper.

“Criminal Police,” he said, starting to feel sick and tired of the words. “I’m looking for Rickard Franzén.”

“He’s taking a nap,” said the woman. “What’s this about?”

“It’s extremely important. If it’s not too much trouble, I really must ask you to wake him.”

“It’s up to you,” said the woman cryptically.

“What?”

“It’s up to you to decide whether it’s too much trouble to ask me to wake him. But maybe you’ve already indirectly answered the indirect question and just as indirectly asked me to wake him up.”

Hjelm stared at her, his mouth agape.

She invited him in with a wave of her hand, smiling up her sleeve, as it were. “Don’t mind me. I’ll always be a language teacher, to the end of my days. Sit down and I’ll go get my husband.” She disappeared up the stairs, moving with surprising agility.

Hjelm remained standing in the enormous vestibule, trying to make sense of what had just ensued.
“If it’s not too much trouble, I really must ask you to wake him.”
Surely that was an acceptable way to say it?

There went his language of intimidation.

After only a couple of minutes, the woman came back down the stairs, followed by an obese elderly man wearing a bathrobe and slippers. The man held out his hand.

“Rickard Franzén,” he said. “Ninety percent of my afternoon nap involves trying to fall asleep and ten percent trying to accept that I won’t be able to. So I wasn’t asleep. It’s hard to get used to being retired after a whole lifetime of working. And I assume that you’ve already noticed that the same is true of my wife.”

“Paul Hjelm,” said Hjelm. “From the Criminal Police.”

“The Stockholm police?”

“No, NCP.” Hjelm had forgotten that the man used to be a judge.

“Some sort of new special unit?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. And I also think I know why you’re here. Fast work.”

“Thanks. So what’s your view on the matter?”

“I think it’s entirely possible that I’m potentially the third victim. We talked about that this morning, my wife and I. Birgitta thought I should call the police. I was more reluctant. And I won the argument. That’s not always the case, let me tell you.”

“Do you think that someone in the Order of Mimir is behind these murders?”