The Andalucian Friend (27 page)

Hector put two cups under the machine, pressed a button, and the contraption made an unpleasant noise as it began to grind coffee beans somewhere inside it.

“Milk?”

“Just a little.”

He poured a splash of milk into the two cups, then handed one to Jens.

“So, tell me.”

“I arrived at a nondescript house in some Munich suburb and found my goods in the cellar. They’d draped a dead body over the boxes.”

Hector raised his eyebrows as he drank.

“Then that big Russian, Mikhail, turned up with Ralph and his son, I don’t remember his name.”

“Christian … ,” Hector said.

“Ralph wanted me to mediate between you and them.”

“And what do you think about that? Being the go-between?”

“I don’t think anything.”

Hector nodded.

“There won’t be any mediation. Those men have stolen our goods, tried to kill me twice, they’ve made threats and God knows what else … Their main aim with all of this is to force us to become part of their organization.”

“Yes, that’s pretty much how he put it,” Jens said.

“OK. Go back to them and tell them to drop this whole business once and for all, and say that their failed attempts ought to have shown them what they’re up against. If they don’t back down now we’ll take it as a declaration of war.”

Hector turned away and rinsed his espresso cup under the tap. He suddenly looked very dark, his anger had found its way out and settled in his furrowed brow. He turned off the water and looked at Jens once more. Hector’s darkness felt like a physical presence in the room.

“Every time things have heated up recently you’ve popped up. And I’m supposed to think that’s coincidence? And now here you are, as some sort of go-between. That doesn’t seem very plausible, does it?”

Jens didn’t answer. Hector looked at him, then shrugged.

“But on the other hand you seem unassuming … calm.”

Jens didn’t bother to contribute.

“Get back to Hanke with our response.”

Hector left the kitchen and went back to his office.

“If you’re fucking with me, you’re a dead man,” he said without turning around.

In the stairs
on the way down to the street he dialed the number he had been given by Mikhail. Roland Gentz answered at the other end.

“Yes.”

“I was told to call this number and pass on a message from Stockholm. Have I reached the right person?”

“Yes.”

“Hector says that you’ve already gone too far, that you need to back down. … If you try anything else this will escalate beyond anyone’s control.”

“I understand, thanks for calling.”

The line went dead.

Jens walked through
Gamla stan, trying to get a grip on everything that was happening, trying to allocate scores, where 1 was biggest, most important, and had to be dealt with first and 10 was for things that could wait, things he could deal with later. He found that there were tons of ones and twos, but was unable to give them any sort of internal ranking. Jens shook off the idea and went to buy breakfast. He found an all-night store selling fresh bread, newly ground coffee, and homemade marmalade. He bought the best of everything, wanted to be able to offer Harry a decent breakfast in a few hours’ time.

Albert had gone to school. The doorbell rang
at half past eight in the morning. She went and let in Jens and a man who introduced himself as Harry, both of them dressed as workmen.

“Good morning, madam,” Jens said.

He imagined that handymen were positive, decent, a bit rough around the edges, both feet on the ground — that was how they were depicted on television, at any rate.

“Welcome, come in.”

They went into the house. Jens played at being a handyman, Sophie a client. Harry kept quiet and made his way to a corner of the living room where he crouched down and opened his toolbox. Sophie was pointing randomly at things.

“To start with, I’d like a door leading to the garden here, with a French door in place of that window, and steps down to the garden as well.”

Jens was looking around.

“Of course.”

As they talked Harry held an oval plastic gadget to his eye and looked around the room. He got up and walked around, searching with the little gadget up to his eye while simultaneously taking readings from a meter in his hand. Sophie and Jens carried on playacting.

Harry wrote something down on a piece of paper. Jens took it, read it, and handed it to Sophie.
No cameras
. They went on, but Sophie’s imagination was starting to wear thin. She couldn’t very well pretend she wanted the whole house rebuilt. Jens took over and explained what could be done and what wouldn’t be possible. He kept using the wrong terminology; he wasn’t exactly a natural handyman, far from it.

Harry searched again with a different instrument, walked up to a lamp, and the needle jumped. He located a hidden microphone, turned toward Jens, and gave the thumbs-up, took out a little Swedish flag on a stand and put it next to the lamp. He moved on, found another one in the kitchen, and left a flag there as well. Upstairs he found microphones in her bedroom, in Albert’s room, and on the landing. Little flags dotted all over the place. Harry checked the phones and found two more. Jens’s mouth was dry after all the talk of home improvements. Sophie’s face was pale.

Harry pulled out a miniature camera. It looked like the clip of a ballpoint pen. He fastened it to an almost invisible electrical cable that ran around the edge of the ceiling, checked that it worked on a tiny television monitor no bigger than his hand. He saw himself on the gadget, backed away, and checked the image again. Harry passed the monitor to Sophie, who took it. He wrote on a piece of paper:

Motion sensitive. The camera starts up if any movement is detected, check it every day, keep the monitor hidden, no more than eight yards from the camera.

Before they left, Jens gave Sophie a pay-as-you-go cell phone and a handwritten note telling her to leave the house in half an hour and call him.

Harry and Jens
were driving in the van.

“What do you think?” Jens asked.

“I think that whoever’s bugging her isn’t short of resources. I saw microphones like that in London last year when I was over there buying supplies. They’re tiny, so small they’re almost invisible to the naked eye, and they’re fucking expensive. The downside is that you have to stay fairly close, the range is pretty limited, two hundred yards, I think. And considerably less in a residential area with trees and houses all ’round. The people using them have probably got a receiver in a parked car, which they keep collecting recordings from.”

Harry was driving and talking as he went.

“Whoever installed this stuff knew what they were doing. There’s probably more there than what we found. Let her know that she needs to be careful when she uses her computer, her cell … pretty much everything, really.”

“If you had to take a guess, who would do something like this?”

Harry looked straight ahead.

“No idea.”

“Does it record?” Anders wondered.

The caretaker shook his head.

“No, but it takes pictures. Like I said, it’s old. The idea is that it takes photographs at thirty-second intervals when there’s an ambulance in the bay.”

“Why?”

The caretaker shrugged.

“I suppose so reception can see when an ambulance arrives, but I don’t really know. …”

Anders and the caretaker were sitting at his desk looking at the pictures from the night when the man with the gunshot wound was brought in. The photographs were crooked close-ups of the car’s windshield.

“Why has it been set up like this?”

“How the hell should I know?”

Anders sighed. He could see the top part of a dark-colored car, half the windshield, and part of the roof. He could see an arm on the wheel, a grainy right arm, possibly a man about to get out of the car. Anders sighed again. No picture of the car as it was leaving the ambulance bay, and in the last photograph it was gone, empty.

“I want all the pictures, even if they look similar.”

Eva had scanned
the pictures into the computer. Anders, Gunilla, and Erik were staring at the screen.

“What sort of car is it?” Gunilla wondered.

No one answered.

“Compare it with” — Gunilla said, looking down at her notes — “Toyota Land Cruiser, 2001 model.”

Eva began to type, looking for images of Land Cruisers on the screen. She found one she liked, ran it through a 3D program, and adjusted the angle, comparing it with the photograph.

“They look the same,” she said.

Eva opened another program and tapped in scales and measurements. The calculations were incomprehensible to the others. A tool that she was steering with the mouse measured parts of both vehicles. She looked at the results.

“In all likelihood, it’s a Toyota Land Cruiser, 2001 model.”

“The nurse is playing rough,” Anders whispered.

“We don’t know that for certain,” Gunilla said.

“Plenty of other people have the same sort of car,” Erik muttered.

Silence fell as they each followed their own thoughts. Gunilla broke it.

“Let’s have some scenarios, assuming that it is Sophie’s car.”

Anders began.

“The only sign of life we have from the vehicle is an arm on the third picture in the sequence. The arm isn’t Sophie’s, it’s a man’s, and he’s about to get out of the vehicle. It can’t be Hector, the tone of skin is too pale. It could be Aron. It could be the partner of the man who was shot … or someone else entirely. Either way, Sophie could have driven ’round the block from the restaurant and picked them up there, there’s a way out from the back, I’ve checked.”

“So what about Lars?” Gunilla interrupted. “Why would Lars claim that she drove home?”

“Maybe he thought she did. Maybe he lost her when she went ’round the block to pick the others up? Missed it, basically.”

“But then he would have said she drove around the block, and he didn’t. He said she drove out onto Odengatan, and that he followed her.”

“Maybe he’s lying?” Anders said.

“Why would he lie?” Gunilla asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Anders, why would Lars lie?”

Anders shook his head.

“I don’t know. …”

Erik screwed up his mouth, then tugged at his bottom lip.

“I think we should examine her car before we start trying to come up with theories. If an injured man was transported in it, we’ll find evidence,” he said.

Gunilla turned toward Eva.

“Check all vehicles of that model and color in the Stockholm area, I want names of their owners. Anders, I’d like you and Hasse Berglund to get better acquainted.”

“We’re already acquainted,” he said.

Anders Ask and Hasse Berglund
had driven over to the technical division that afternoon. Gunilla had told them to pick up a box from reception. It didn’t need to be signed out, just collected. Anders tucked it under his arm and left the building, nodding to some old cops he recognized. They nodded in acknowledgment.

They ate pizza at Hasse’s favorite place, Pizzeria Colosseum in Botkyrka. Hasse had a Colosseum special with pork chops and béarnaise sauce, Anders a Hawaiian. They drank Falcon, which Hasse claimed was the only beer worth drinking, everything else tasted like piss … fox piss, apparently, whatever that tasted like.

Drunks teetering on the brink of homelessness were drinking from a carafe of red wine in one corner of the restaurant. They kept veering from subject to subject, yelling at one another as they discussed education, health care, company directors, and
that bastard, what’s his name, the foreign minister … Carl Bildt
.

Hasse stood up, went over to them, and asked them to keep the noise down. The hoarse, ravaged-looking woman with red-colored hair shouted that she stopped taking orders from men years ago … it was against her principles … and he should make no fucking mistake about that. One of her friends started to snarl something incoherent at Hasse, who went back to his pizza and sat down.

“Why do you even bother to get involved in stuff like that?”

“I don’t know.” Berglund sighed, taking a bite from a large piece of pizza with strings of cheese hanging off it.

“So tell me all about Mommy, then,” he said with his mouth full.

Anders cut a piece of pizza.

“There’s not so much to tell, we’ve known each other a long time. She’s rescued me from total humiliation a few times. I got the push from the security police.”

Anders took a bite.

“Why did you get the push?”

“They caught me with my hand in the cookie jar,” he said in between chews.

“What sort of cookie jar?” Hasse asked.

Anders finished his mouthful.

“A gang of Eritreans we had under surveillance out in Norsborg. I was going to install cameras there one evening, and found a paper bag full of money under the sink. I stuck my hand in, filled my pockets … One of my cretinous colleagues reported me.”

“And she helped you?”

“Yes, somehow or other … At least I only got the push, not prison.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did she help you?”

“In exchange for me doing a few jobs for her, staying loyal.”

“And are you?” Hasse said, mid-mouthful.

Anders nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“How sweet.”

Hasse drank some beer. The drunks started shouting at each other, Hasse looked over, and Anders gestured to him to let it go.

“So what happened?” he asked.

“I left the security police with my tail about as far between my legs as it would go. I did a few little jobs for her during the years that followed, then everything got messed up again.”

Anders chewed.

“There was a group of us who wanted to make a fast buck. We doped a few horses at the races out in Täby. … It was a fucking mess, two of them died, we were standing there when the inspectors came around, I still had the syringe in my hand.”

He chuckled at the memory.

“Gunilla came to the rescue on that occasion as well, it was pretty stupid, but she always seemed to turn up and put things right whenever I messed up … So I owe her, basically.”

Hasse finished his beer and had foam on his top lip when he put the glass down.

“You started babbling something in the car … about us sticking together.”

Anders took a bite and shrugged.

“Oh, it was nothing.”

“Go on, tell me,” Berglund said.

Anders shook his head.

“It wasn’t important.”

“So tell me, then.”

Anders thought for a moment as he chewed. He finished his beer and glanced over his shoulder.

“It was an investigation that Gunilla and Erik were running. I was freelancing. We were about to get Zdenko, the so-called King of the Racetrack, you know. Big gangster, working out of Malmö. He had a girl, Swedish, no brain at all. A blonde from Alingsås, twenty-eight years old. Patricia something …”

Anders seemed to get sidetracked for a moment, then pulled himself together.

“Gunilla had brought her in before, she had something on her, I don’t know what. We put a wire on her but didn’t get anything from that. Then suddenly she disappeared. Zdenko went free, although he was later shot and killed out at Jägersro Racecourse.”

“Where did she go?”

“Don’t know, she just disappeared. Vanished.”

“What?”

Anders cut a piece of pizza.

“Vanished, I said. She disappeared, was reported missing, but there was never any sign of her again.”

“Dead?”

Anders took a mouthful, looked at Hasse, chewed, shrugged his shoulders.

“How did you get away with that?”

“It wasn’t that hard, we erased everything we had about her, it was as if she never existed in our investigation. That’s how Gunilla works. She always worked like that, using people. She sees it as a natural part of the job, involving people she needs to involve, even if they don’t want to take part.”

He looked up.

“And keeping people she doesn’t need on the outside, that’s why she succeeds in most of what she attempts to do.”

“How?”

“How? Well, I’m sitting here, aren’t I, the bad cop from the security police, the horse murderer. And you, a mostly terrible rapid-response cop with mood swings. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

“How did she get Zdenko’s blonde to play along?” Hasse asked.

“I don’t know … She was probably promised something, or threatened with something.”

“Like our nurse?”

“No, not quite … That was something else, I never did find out what. Either way, it’s over now, finished.”

The drunks were now arguing about the Palestinian question in the background.

“We made it through unscathed that time,” Anders went on.

“And by that you mean what, exactly?”

Anders washed the pizza down with beer.

“By that I mean what I said before, that we have to stick together. It might turn out to be heaven or hell, but we need to have an exit strategy in case everything goes to heck.”

“To heck? What kind of lame phrase is that?”

“She’s taking a lot of risks right now.”

“I think she knows what she’s doing.” Hasse leaned back in his chair, cleaning his teeth with his tongue.

Anders shrugged.

“Sure, but you understand what we’re doing?”

“What?”

“The group she’s built up is shapeless, it’s like a shadow within a much bigger organization. That’s what she wanted, and that’s what she’s got. … This isn’t just some ordinary job we’re doing. This is on the verge of judicial anarchy. She does whatever she wants to get results. She’s found a way. One day someone higher up will tire of it. I’m just saying that if you see or hear anything unusual, talk to me. And I’ll do the same for you. OK?”

Hasse suppressed a hiccup.

“I’m an old rapid response cop who got exiled to the airport. That’s on a par with being sent to lost property. My career was fucked, I was supposed to hang around rotting out there until I hit sixty-five. Then I was supposed to drink myself to death and die alone in some shitty apartment somewhere. But I got a phone call that changed all that. You wouldn’t get any odds on that, so I’m thinking of doing as I’m told, I’m thinking of doing exactly what the boss tells me.”

Hasse looked out across the room and burped quietly into his hand.

“Well, you know what I mean,” he concluded.

The drunks had gotten onto immigration policy now, none of them was racist,
but
 … The red-haired woman even knew some immigrants who were decent people, but the fact that they came over here and took jobs from honest Swedes, she didn’t like that at all. Hasse stretched.

“When do we have to be there?” he asked.

“Three hours.”

“Another round?”

Anders couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. They ordered another round. Hasse drank his down in one, Anders drank half, Hasse gestured for more.

“And two Jägers as well!” he called.

For a while they couldn’t think of anything to talk about, and just looked out across the room. The drunks were talking nonsense, pan-pipes were playing “I Just Called to Say I Love You” over the speakers up in the ceiling. Anders drew the Olympic rings on the table with the bottom of his wet beer glass.

“What sort of exit strategy did you have in mind?” Hasse asked.

Beer and Jägers appeared before them. They drank the shots in one gulp.

“Two more!” Hasse said before he had time to put the empty glass down. The waitress in the black T-shirt was already long gone.

“She heard, didn’t she?”

“I think we should try to be a bit strategic.”

“Don’t talk crap, Anders … And …”

Hasse burped mid-sentence. He grinned.

“Anders And!” he exclaimed.

Anders looked quizzically at Hasse, who went on in a slurred voice: “Donald Duck’s called Anders And in Norwegian. That’s you, Donald Duck!”

Anders didn’t respond, and Hasse let out an odd laugh.

“It’s a fucking good name for a cartoon character. Anders And …”

Anders looked at Hasse, bemused by his strange sense of humor.

“What shall I call you? Donald Duck or Anders And?”

Anders drank the last drops from his glass.

“Anders And,” he said in a tone of resignation.

“That’s that sorted then. Where were we?”

“We need to keep our backs clear.”

“And how do we do that?”

“We deny everything point-blank, but we have to deny it together.”

“OK, let’s deny it point-blank,” Hasse said, and raised his glass.

They left Botkyrka
and the Colosseum, bought a six-pack of medium-strength beer from the gas station, and headed back toward the city along the Essinge Highway.

“I like driving when I’m drunk,” Hasse said.

Anders leaned toward the open window, letting the mild evening air hit him in the face.

“OK, that Lars guy, he’s a bit of an idiot, isn’t he?” Hasse asked.

The wind was stroking Anders’s hair.

“He’s just an idiot. Ignore him.”

They killed time by driving around the city center, drinking beer, checking out the people on the streets and listening to an old Randy Crawford album.

Hasse did a tight turn around the Sergels torg roundabout, shifting down the Volvo’s gears and putting his foot down, driving around it three times. The g-force threw the men to the right. Randy Crawford sang, Anders emptied his can, burped loudly, and threw it out into the fountain in the center of the roundabout. Hasse didn’t want to let the side down, so did a truck-driver’s horn gesture and broke wind noisily.

At two o’clock they headed out toward Stocksund.

They were sitting
in the Volvo a block or so away from Sophie’s house, connected wirelessly to the equipment in Little Lars’s surveillance car that was parked by a clump of trees. Anders had headphones on.

“I think they’re snoozing nicely now. Shall we?”

They got out of the car and walked up the road, Anders carrying the box from Technical Division under his arm, Hasse with a can of beer in his hand. The sun was somewhere just over the horizon. The nights were never properly dark at this time of year.

“I hate summer,” Anders said.

They each pulled on a black knitted hat. Anders looked at Hasse.

“Terrorist?”

Hasse chuckled.

“Where did you do your national service?”

“The interpreting unit. You?”

“Arvidsjaur,” Hasse replied.

“Of course …”

They crept into the gravel drive where the Land Cruiser was parked, stopped, and listened to the silence.

Anders switched on a flashlight and looked around the interior of the vehicle. It looked clean.

He opened the box and took out an electronic gadget. He pressed a button and a digital counter started working its way through a spectrum while Anders held it toward the car. The counter started with low-frequency sounds and gradually made its way up the scale. The neighbor’s car unlocked some thirty yards away, its lights flashing in the night. They laughed quietly.

The digital gadget worked. Sophie’s car unlocked. Anders put the gadget back in the box and carefully opened one of the rear doors. He took an ultraviolet lamp from the box, switched it on, and swept it over the seats. He found nothing unusual, even though he checked everywhere — floor, sills, seats, roof — the whole car. No blood anywhere, it was all incredibly clean.