The Invisible Man from Salem (26 page)

‘Nothing,' I screamed, and he stared at me. ‘You knew Julia, didn't you? Julia Grimberg.'

Hearing the name surprised him. Something flickered in his eyes.

‘Yes. Why?'

I didn't know what to say to that. Instead I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him backwards, forcing him to take a step back.

‘Let me go,' he said. And then, quieter: ‘You will regret it if you don't.'

‘Don't what?'

‘If you don't let me go.'

I remembered that I laughed. Not at him, but everything else. How absurd everything was, how complicated it had got. I laughed at the fear I felt, laughed at Grim. At Julia. And then I hit Tim, again and again. Once in the face, in the stomach, between his legs. He offered no resistance, just lay there looking at me with an empty stare, which is what provoked me even more. That look reminded me of Grim's and there was something unsettling about the whole thing.

It might have been the hangover, or Julia, or Grim; maybe it was Tim's blank stare and his equally empty, meaningless threats. Probably all of those things. I bent double in the shower, gasping for air.

XX

Time, I'm running out of time. The feeling is unmistakeable, but I don't know what to do about it. Levin has disappeared into the building, and I walk around Kungsholmen with my hands in my pockets. I'm trying to think.

Recollections of this morning — the reporters on the doorstep — come back to me, and for some reason I can't shake them. That feeling of being watched and hunted grows inside me, and I turn around, time and again, convinced that someone is following me. I slip into a café, a hole-in-the-wall place on a side street near Kungsholmen Square, and I choose a seat where I can see the window and the door. Out on the street, an old woman is dragging an equally old man along the road, as though they are in a hurry to get somewhere. The man seems to be resisting, until I realise that he just can't walk any faster.

My phone rings. I recognise the number. It's a Salem number. I put the phone to my ear.

‘Hello?'

‘Leo, it's Mum. I … How are things?'

‘Good. Has something happened to Dad?'

‘No, no.' She clears her throat. ‘No, all's well here. We were just wondering, we read about what has happened and … I just wondered if everything's okay.'

I close my eyes.

‘Everything is fine.'

‘Is it? Because …'

‘It's no big deal. Just a misunderstanding.'

‘Because I was thinking, what with everything that happened in the spring, you know.'

I haven't told them any details, those few times I've been to Salem. In fact, I've stayed away as much as possible just to avoid that.

‘Micke's worried, too.'

‘Tell him it's all okay.'

She sighs.

‘Mum, it's okay. Honestly.'

‘Oh well, if you say so. It was nice to see you the other day,' she says instead.

I do my best to keep talking to her a bit longer, but before long the stress falls down onto my shoulders again and I finish the call. I drink some water and it goes down wrong, making me cough.

Rebecca Salomonsson was robbed. She went to Chapmansgården to sleep, and someone ended her life by going in there and shooting her. She had Julia's necklace in her hand. I try to work out whether there's a connection between the robbery and her death, but I don't get anywhere. I try to imagine Grim as the perpetrator, but it doesn't fit. He would never be that careless.

My phone vibrates.

have you worked it out yet?

I hesitate.

grim?

yes

My pulse is racing.

we need to meet
, I write.

yes

where are you?

soon

what does that mean?

I stare at my phone. It is mute and black, until it lights up and the ringtone vibrates through. It's Birck. I don't answer, and carry on waiting instead. When nothing happens, I send another text.

hello

Still nothing, until Birck rings again. I ignore it and drink some more water. A bus slows down and pulls up at the bus stop. A big advert covers one side of the bus: a middle-aged woman and an equally middle-aged man, both flawlessly beautiful, and the words
YESTERDAY'S SKILLS, TOMORROW'S LIABILITY — KEEP YOUR CV UP TO DATE
. In one corner of the café, a dad is sitting with his child, a boy. The boy says something that makes him laugh. I look away. He's the age Viktor would have been.

The phone rings for a third time and I give up. I answer.

‘What?'

‘Why the hell didn't you answer?' Birck says. ‘I was about to file a missing person's report.'

‘What do you want?'

In total, five hundred and thirty-six tips about the murder of Rebecca Salomonsson have been received and registered. It often takes far too long for the police to wade through that number of tips, for obvious reasons. People are unreliable. The details they give must be verified, either by comparing them to one another, or to cold, objective facts, like forensic evidence. I've done it myself, for a short time towards the end of my training. In cases of homicide, the tips are prioritised but it is still very time-consuming. The aim is to get through the witness reports within the critical first seventy-two hours.

It is only now, a little more than sixty hours since the crime, that they've finished doing it on the Rebecca Salomonsson case, and a few have proved to be of some interest.

‘More specific witness testimonies described a man who was like … well, like you.'

Birck clears his throat.

‘Someone is trying to stitch me up,' I say. ‘I think I'm starting to grasp who it —'

‘Calm down.'

‘What?'

‘We got lucky this time. It turned out that one of the witnesses recognised him. She's a former whizz-whore who now earns a living as a bartender, and by coincidence she often works at the bar where a certain Peter Koll likes to drink expensive Spanish liqueur.'

‘Koll? Spelt like Koll as in —'

‘As in Kollberg, yes. The similarities end there.' Birck clears his throat, again. ‘We're pretty sure that it is him. There's just one problem.'

‘Which is?'

‘He doesn't want to talk to us.'

‘Well, I never.'

‘You don't understand what I mean. I … shit, hold on.' I hear Birck struggling with something and clicking on his computer. ‘Right. Should work now. Listen.'

First a rasping noise, then the background noise caught by a microphone. I push the phone harder to my ear.

A voice with a slight and hard-to-place foreign accent:

‘I don't want to talk to you.'

Then Birck's voice:

‘Who do you want to speak to then?'

‘…'

‘Who do you want to speak to then?'

‘I have been instructed to only speak to one person.'

‘And that is?'

‘…'

‘Must I ask every question twice?'

‘Junker.'

‘Leo Junker?'

‘Yes.'

‘And who gave you these instructions?'

‘…'

‘Who gave you these instructions?'

‘…'

Birck clicks the mouse button again, and the sound stops.

‘We've got a lot to talk about, you and I,' he says.

IT'S ONLY A SHORT WALK
to police HQ, but as I step out into the street a taxi stops at the junction and drops off a passenger. I raise my hand, climb into the car, and try to collect my thoughts during the two-minute journey.

I'm now more used to answering questions than asking them, but there is a subtle elegance to a well-executed interrogation. It is pretty much always about providing the officer in charge with a bureaucratically correct piece of the puzzle ahead of the trial. The protocol must be followed; everything needs to be recorded, transcribed, and approved by the interviewee. It then needs to be labelled, added to the documents, and archived. In the digital archive, there are years and years' worth of sound recordings, of people just talking. To listen to all of them would take lifetimes.

‘PETER ZORAN KOLL
,' Birck says, as he moves through HQ half a step ahead of me. ‘Thirty-six years old, born in what was then Yugoslavia, but raised in Germany. His parents fled the war. He came to Sweden in 2003; his first conviction was in May 2004, for illegally possessing a firearm. Since then, suspected of more than twenty crimes, basically everything apart from rape and treason, but never convicted of anything other than petty offences that carry suspended sentences or a tag. He …'

Birck stops, and looks me up and down. His face is close to mine, and I can smell his breath, a sour mixture of mint and coffee.

‘Are you high, Leo?'

‘Me? Er, not anymore.' I blink. ‘I think. No.'

Birck breathes out, his cheeks clenched.

‘I can't have someone high in an interview.'

‘I'm not high, I told you.'

Birck looks at me, sceptical.

‘You can't have a suspended officer in the interview either,' I remind him. ‘Strictly speaking, I mean.'

‘You're coming in,' he says frostily. ‘You're coming in, but you keep your mouth shut.'

I shrug. He keeps walking and I follow him. ‘Do you know anything about this guy?', he asks.