The Other Son (4 page)

Tommy held up his right hand when he saw Miles. Ingmarsson sat down and gestured for a beer. They plodded through the social crap, which went quickly, seeing as they were both completely hopeless at it. Then Tommy got to the point.

“Do you want to take over a murder investigation?”

“Which one?”

“Trasten.”

“Trasten?” Miles asked.

“The restaurant in Vasastan. The gangster shootout last summer. When Hector Guzman fled the country,” Tommy explained.

Miles nodded. No one could have missed that one.

An honest-to-God bloodbath in Vasastan six months earlier, at the Trasten restaurant. Four dead. Three killed in the restaurant, Russian gangsters. Two shot and killed in the restaurant, one tortured to death in the kitchen. The police also found parts of a dismembered body in the freezer. This latter turned out to be a harmless local petty criminal, Leif Rydbäck. Not long after that, the lead investigator, Gunilla Strandberg, was murdered by one of her colleagues, Lars Vinge. A really screwed-up story. The newspapers wallowed in theories and the questions just kept piling up, even within the investigation. The police were casting about; they had nothing to go on, seeing as the central character, a hitherto unknown major-league criminal, Hector Guzman, a Spaniard based in Stockholm, had vanished from the face of the earth after the shootout.

“Why?” Miles asked.

“Because I need a different detective.”

“Why me?”

“Because you've been around a while, you know the ropes,” Tommy said.

“No, I don't.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What's the catch?” Miles asked.

“No catch, I just want to replace the current detective with you.”

“What's the catch?” Miles asked again.

“Don't be so fucking critical of yourself. We've got a lot going on, you can get a promotion. And I need her elsewhere.”

“Her?”

“Miller, Antonia Miller.”

Antonia Miller. She was good, according to what he'd heard.

“When?”

“Soon,” Tommy said, taking a deep swig from his glass of beer.

“I'm in the middle of a load of cases at Eco,” Miles said. “I can't leave the others in the lurch; not now.”

Tommy stifled a hiccup.

“ 'Course you can. They're all a bunch of goddamn socialists up there, the whole lot of them. I'm pulling you out of there.”

Their paths had crossed now and then over the years. They were half friends, you could probably say. They hadn't met for a while, and Miles thought Tommy seemed different somehow, more acerbic.

“What about Miller?”

“Don't worry about her,” Tommy said gruffly.

A waiter appeared with a sloppily poured beer and put it on the table, spilling some in the process.

Miles took a gulp of his, while Tommy took three deep swigs.

“Do you want another one?” Tommy asked.

Miles shook his head. Tommy belched.

Antonia was standing a short distance away at the bar. She saw Tommy and another man but didn't think too much about it. She and Tommy saw each other pretty much every day, worked together, and argued about all manner of things. That was how it should be. Tommy was her boss. But their relationship was wrecked, for some reason. He'd changed in the past few months, with mood swings—a very short fuse, caustic and arrogant. He was micromanaging her, getting in the way of her work. And he reeked of a hangover pretty much the whole time. Probably because of the stress of living with a wife with a fatal disease. Even so, Antonia was sick to death of trying to adapt to his bad qualities. Not that she could deny that she had some of her own. It was obvious Tommy thought she was a nuisance, a lot of people thought that. That she was trouble, too eager, too pushy. What was she supposed to do about that? Give in and back down?

Antonia had grown up in a loving home. That was how she remembered it anyway. But in that love there had also been a fear of the truth. Lots of whispering and hushing when she approached adults having a conversation. Maybe her parents were just scared that so-called reality was too cold and raw for her gentle little ears. In itself it didn't actually matter. What did matter was that because of the whispering that surrounded her when she was growing up, she had developed an almost obsessive need to know things. Whatever it was, she needed answers in order to carry on living and breathing.

And she had found many answers over the years. That had accelerated her career, and she was recognized as a good detective. But Tommy had started to whisper when she approached. And she wanted to know why.

She looked at the men over in the corner again. The dark-haired one stood up, shook hands with Tommy, and left the table. He walked in her direction, and they looked at each other as he passed. She recognized him: he worked for Economic Crime. One of the thousands of disillusioned men she had seen coming and going. What marked him out from the crowd was the way he dressed. Jeans, black oxfords, a smart shirt under an expensive lambswool sweater. A thin beige coat over his arm. There was something tiresomely stylish about him….

Antonia looked around among the police officers, firemen, and ambulance staff, looking for Ulf in the crowd. Ulf was the only reason she had come. He was a brawny surveillance officer from Ludvika, in the backwoods of Dalarna, taciturn but decent. She didn't find gym-trained cops attractive. But what she did find attractive was that he was so focused about sex, was kinky in an unthreatening way, and kept his mouth shut, and he was kind, deep down.

She caught sight of him, and their eyes met. They had a drink together, with nothing to talk about. Then they took a taxi back to his tidy two-room apartment in Sundbyberg, with scented candles in the bathroom.

Sophie walked out into the arrivals hall with its row of car-rental desks. She presented her reservation at the correct desk and was soon sitting behind the wheel, heading toward the city of Cartago, southwest of Pereira.

The window was open, heat was flooding in, and her sunglasses allowed her eyes to relax in the bright daylight.

This was a routine job, like all the other trips she had made over the past six months. She was going to calm people down and reassure them that everything was under control. She was good at it; it had become something of a talent.

She wondered if she was going to see Alfonse, was seeing him in her mind's eye. Alfonse Ramirez, Don Ignacio's nephew. He had been at Trasten….

Six months prior, late summer. She and her boyfriend, Jens, had been pursued through the center of Stockholm by Russians he had sold weapons to. The Russians were wired and violent. They wanted their money back, and they wanted to kill him. They fled in a car but had nowhere to go. She had called Hector: he was in a business meeting at the Trasten restaurant in Vasastan. Ernst Lundwall, Hector's adviser, was there, Alfonse Ramirez was there, and the restaurant's owner, Carlos Fuentes, was there. She and Jens arrived. The Russians showed up, waving their guns, and they beat Jens until he was more dead than alive. They were about to start shooting when Mikhail Asmarov and Klaus Köhler burst in and opened fire on them, saving the lives of Sophie, Jens, Hector, and the others.

Blood, brain tissue, gunpowder smoke, and silence. Those were her clearest memories as she lay on the floor with Hector on top of her, protecting her. Then Alfonse Ramirez's bloodlust when he managed to persuade the two men not to shoot the gang's leader, the vile Dmitry. Alfonse and Hector had finished him off in the kitchen, and took their time over it. Alfonse Ramirez was beaming like the sun when he emerged.

Sophie and Hector fled in his private jet to Málaga, and drove off toward Marbella, where Hector's father lived. The restaurant's owner, Carlos Fuentes, then snitched to Hector's nemesis, the German magnate Ralph Hanke. Hanke's men caught up with them on the motorway and shot Hector, causing him to slip into a coma.

Her memories were crystal clear.

Sophie took her sunglasses off, she needed light.

A church bell was chiming three o'clock in the afternoon when she parked the car in the little square in the center of the city. She had been told to wait there for a taxi. She barely had time to think about it before it came driving up along the narrow street.

The driver didn't speak to her, just drove around the city looking in his rearview mirror, then he made a call on his cell, muttered something, and hung up.

After a while he stopped on a busy street outside a restaurant and gestured to her to go in. She did as she was told, and inside the door a man took her gently by the arm and led her between the tables, through a kitchen, and out through another door into an empty back street. Another taxi was waiting for her there, its back door open, and she slid in, the door closed, and the taxi drove off. It went on like that. Sophie switched cars three times before she found herself sitting in a silver Cadillac that sped her along a motorway at high speed.

A pickup with wooden crates on the back was passing her window, anxious chickens clambering on top of one another in the crates in a fruitless and impossible attempt to break out.

She was struck by a sudden sense of unease, a premonition that she shouldn't be there.

The Cadillac turned off the motorway and headed into a forest. The trees were spread out and sunlight filtered through the foliage.

They came to a security lodge and a barrier across the road. A thin man with an automatic rifle over his shoulder came out, raised his hand in greeting, and lifted the barrier. The Cadillac drove in. She noticed a camouflaged sniper on a small hill among the trees. He was lying on the ground, tracking the car she was in with his gun.

They emerged from the forest, where the road improved and eventually wound its way up toward a cream-colored little castle with pillars, statues, fountains, and lush rectangular lawns.

The driver opened Sophie's door and she got out. The view was immense. Dense, verdant vegetation below her, as far as the eye could see. Mountains in the distance, and a heavy, moist heat weighing everything down.

A dark-haired man in gray trousers and a white shirt came toward her from the entrance.

“Sophie?” he said.

They exchanged a firm handshake. Ignacio Ramirez was faceless in an inexplicable way, impossible to describe. The smile on his lips looked genuine, but there was something different about his eyes, something false, perhaps. His black hair was dyed, his skin pallid, and the stomach bulging under the white shirt bore witness to indolence and a bad diet.

“Come,” he said, gesturing away from the building with his hand.

Don Ignacio invited her to sit in an electric golf cart, then drove off through the grounds, pointing and explaining things as they went. They passed a compound containing a solitary giraffe that stood there staring at nothing in the company of a few zebras and two hippopotamuses. The animals looked thoroughly depressed. Tennis courts, a swimming pool with a waterfall, a helipad with a helicopter on it. Armed guards everywhere.

She watched him from the corner of her eye as he proudly steered the electric cart through his pale imitation of Disneyland. It was soulless and empty. Full of a negative energy that was so strong she could almost smell it. And in that energy was something that reminded her again that she shouldn't be there, to get away, run. This place was dangerous, it could make you sick, it was infectious.

They were sitting
in a large living room. Stone walls, pale-gray granite, large thick windows, all held together by solid pale wood. The sofas were wide, deep, expensive. The room was reminiscent of a North American hunting lodge; they could have been in an exclusive ski resort. Sophie was sitting on the edge of one of the deep sofas, Don Ignacio on an armchair.

A waiter in a white jacket and black trousers came in with drinks and nibbles, put them down on the table, and discreetly left the room.

Don Ignacio reached for the glass bowl of nuts.

“We'll wait for a while,” he said, and began eating the nuts.

A door opened at the far end of the room. Sophie saw Alfonse Ramirez walking slowly across the floor toward her. His smile was radiant white, his skin light brown, his hair black. He threw most of the world into shade, he was that sort of person:
all lights on me!

“We know each other,” he said to her, keeping his huge smile intact.

No, they didn't, they didn't know each other at all, apart from the fact that she had been present at Trasten when he beat one of the Russians to death in a state of genuine joy.

She stood up and Alfonse gave her the customary double kiss on both cheeks, then sat down in the corner of the sofa and threw his hands out.

The men in front of her were neither friends nor enemies. They were longtime business partners of Hector's organization, and they paid more to Don Ignacio than they earned from selling his drugs. That was the way it was for everyone who did business with him. If you wanted out, you died.

“Stockholm,” Alfonse said. “That's where things happen!” Then he chuckled and let his laughter fade away before switching his expression from delight to empathy.

“How is Hector?”

“He's fine.”

Alfonse nodded. “Good to hear. I've been worried. My uncle, too.”

Alfonse gestured toward Don Ignacio, who didn't look particularly worried. His blank look suggested that he considered everything apart from himself to be of a definitely secondary nature, and entirely unnecessary.

“And now you're here, Sophie,” Alfonse said.

She took his words to mean that she should explain why she had come, but Alfonse held up his hand to her.

“Now you're here,” he repeated. “To reassure us, to tell us that everything is as it should be. Perhaps you're going to ask for more time, perhaps tell us a tale of how you're up and running again, that our dealings will soon be back in action.”

She turned cold and had an immediate sense that this was heading in a direction that she couldn't control, and with which she wasn't at all comfortable.

His attitude was different now.

“But we know everything,” he went on. “We know you've approached a lot of Hector's business contacts, have reassured them that it is business as usual, under control, that Hector is in hiding but is working at full capacity. That's what you've been saying. You've asked for time and understanding, you've promised even greater successes once things have calmed down and returned to normal. That's been your task, and you have done it well.”

She smiled in an attempt to play it cool and tried to object, but Alfonse Ramirez raised his forefinger.

“But perhaps Hector Guzman is dead? Or so badly wounded that he can't speak for himself? Perhaps Aron is struggling to keep your little enterprise afloat? Am I on the right track?”

Alfonse fell silent. Don Ignacio went on eating the nuts, slower now, one at a time, as if the first handfuls had sated his hunger.

She tried again.

“You're painting a rather unhappy picture.” She smiled. “But it isn't true. Everything is carrying on the same as usual, even if Hector has to stay in hiding. There's a warrant out for him, and we aren't taking any risks….”

Ignacio and Alfonse stared blankly at her. Ignacio said, “Hector's brother, Eduardo Garcia, died tragically in Biarritz a couple of days ago.”

The room grew darker. How could they know that? The urge to flee was getting stronger. But she remained seated, holding the sofa with her hands, trying to keep steady.

Alfonse continued in a monotone. “Someone wants something of you, someone wants to say something.”

He looked at her with his ice-blue eyes.

“You must have someone in mind, Sophie?” he went on.

“It doesn't matter,” she said. Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat quietly.

Alfonse smiled.

“Don't be scared. Who?”

“There are several possibilities. Hector has a lot of enemies.”

“But the most likely?”

She gave up.

“The Germans,” she said.

“The Hankes?”

An almost imperceptible nod from Sophie.

“What is the story with Hector and Ralph Hanke?” Alfonse asked.

“I think you know, Alfonse. Why do you ask me?”

“Please tell us,” Don Ignacio said.

Everything felt very scripted, each one knew when the other should take over.

“It started innocently with competitive bids on a legal construction project in Brussels between Ralph Hanke and Hector's father, Adalberto Guzman. It escalated beyond everyone's control and took an upturn, when one of Ralph's men did a hit and run in Stockholm, where Hector was hurt and hospitalized. Adalberto and Hector answered shortly after by attacking Ralph's son Christian Hanke. Everything went wrong. Christian's girlfriend died…”

“And in the end?” Don Ignacio asked.

In the end…

Sophie was sucked back to the events on the motorway between Málaga and Marbella, a six months earlier. Two people on a motorcycle chased her and Hector. They shot straight into the car. Hector was injured, went into a coma. It was a planned assault, Adalberto was murdered in his home in the same moment.

“In the end,” she said. “They killed Adalberto Guzman.”

“So they won, didn't they, Hankes?” Don Ignacio leaned back.

She didn't even shrug, just sat there and waited.

“What is going on, Sophie, why Hankes now? If you're just guessing?” he continued.

“There's something they want,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows.

“ ‘
There's something they want
,' ” he repeated theatrically, crossing one leg over the other.