“A lot has happened,” he said. “We’re nipping at his heels. Has everyone had a chance to take a look at the summary I put together last night with the help of a little conference-calling across the Atlantic?”
“I’ve accidentally pulled out that phone they have in the armrests a lot of times, but this was the first time I used it,” Hjelm said sleepily.
“Have you had a chance to look through it?” Hultin repeated.
Everyone appeared to nod, if a bit sluggishly here and there.
“Then you know what our main task is: to find out Wayne Jennings’s Swedish name. Besides that, the questions are, one: Why has he been using a warehouse at LinkCoop to carry out his business? Apparently it was a habit; otherwise his son wouldn’t have copied the key. Two: Why did he torture Benny Lundberg, the security guard? Three: How does the failed break-in at LinkCoop relate to the murders of Eric Lindberger and Lamar Jennings, at the same time, about ten doors away? Four: Why was Eric Lindberger killed? Five: Did it have anything to do with his links to the Arab world? Six: Is Justine Lindberger at risk, too? I’m putting her under surveillance for safety’s sake. Seven: Can we find Wayne Jennings in the immigration register for 1983? Eight: The difficult and delicate question-is Wayne Jennings CIA?”
“We could always go the official route,” said Arto Söderstedt, “and just ask the CIA.”
“I’m afraid that if we do, we’ll guarantee that he’ll disappear one way or another.”
“As far as I can tell from this,” Chavez said, waving Hultin’s summary papers, “he could just as easily belong to military intelligence. Or he could have been recruited by the opposing side or the Mafia or a drug syndicate or some nasty maverick organization.”
“Agreed,” Hultin said. “It’s far too early to identify him as CIA as any sort of main theory. Anything else in general?… No? Then to details. Arto keeps working on Lindberger, Jorge on the Volvo. Viggo and Gunnar can stay in today-take on the immigrations. Paul can go down to Frihamnen and sniff around. Kerstin can take on Benny Lundberg. How’s it going with Lindberger, Arto?”
“Eric Lindberger left behind a lot of notes, which I’ve checked out, and they contain no mysteries. But his calendar includes an extremely interesting entry: a meeting scheduled for the night before his death. His corpse was loaded into the Volvo in Frihamnen by Wayne Jennings at two-thirty in the morning on September twelfth, we know that. At ten o’clock the night before, the entry for the appointment says ‘Riche’s Bar’-unfortunately nothing more. I went down and waltzed around Riche’s yesterday afternoon, trying to find someone who had been working at the bar at ten that night. There are a lot of staff members, so it was hard, but finally I found a bartender, Luigi Engbrandt. He racked his brains to remember, but it’s a busy bar. He thinks he might remember Lindberger; if he’s right, he hung around the bar for a while, waiting for someone. Unfortunately, Luigi has no memory of anyone ever coming. I also checked Eric’s bank account. He leaves behind a decent but not exceptional fortune, six hundred thousand kronor altogether. Today I’m going to see Justine.”
“Why Justine?” said Norlander. “Leave her alone.”
“Discrepancies,” said Söderstedt. “The large apartment, the spouses’ collaboration, a few strange things she said when we last spoke. There are also some interesting items in her Filofax that I’d like her to comment on.”
“Okay,” said Hultin. “Did you get any farther with the cars, Jorge?”
“The cars.” Chavez made a face. “As you know, I’ve set a whole fucking armada of foot soldiers to work. Soon they will have gone through all the cars. Volvos seem to be owned by dependable, average middle-class Swedes as a rule. None of the ones we’ve checked so far has been stolen or was loaned out the night of the murder. Stefan Helge Larsson, the small-time criminal whose car had disappeared along with him, has returned from a month-long stay in Amsterdam. The traffic cops in Dalshammar, wherever that is, caught him, quote, ‘exceptionally under the influence of drugs’ on the E4. He was driving the wrong way down the highway. My interest is focused more and more on the car that’s registered to a nonexistent business. That’s what I’m going to work on today.”
“I think everything else is settled,” Hultin said briskly. “Let’s go. We have to get him. Preferably yesterday, as stressed-out businessmen like to joke.”
“What’s going on in the media?” said Kerstin Holm.
“The witch hunt continues,” said Hultin. “Sales of locks, weapons, and German shepherds have increased considerably. Orders have been given for platters containing the heads of those responsible. Mainly mine. Mörner’s too. He’s in a full-time panic. Do you want me to call him down so he can give you a little morale-boosting speech?
“Better than a blowtorch in your ass,” he remarked to the now-empty Supreme Central Command.
Arto Söderstedt called Justine Lindberger right away. The widow was home. Her voice sounded surprisingly peppy.
“Justine,” she said.
“Söderstedt here, with the police.”
“Oh.”
“Do you think I could take a peek at your planner?”
“My Filofax, you mean? It’s still at my office, I’m afraid. And I don’t understand what that could have to do with anything.”
“I can pick it up there, if it’s too tough for you to go.”
“No! No thank you-I don’t want the police nosing around in my desk. I’ll have them send it here by messenger. Then you can come and have a peek.”
“Right away?”
“I’m hardly awake. It’s ten after nine. How’s eleven?”
“Great. See you then.”
So she has time to make a few adjustments, he thought slyly.
The next step was to call her bank. The same bank as her late spouse. The same bank officer. He called. “Hello, this is Söderstedt,” he said in his singsong voice.
“Who?”
“The policeman. Yesterday you kindly gave me access to the deceased Eric Lindberger’s accounts. Today I need to look at his wife Justine’s.”
“That’s different. I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.”
“It’s possible,” he sang. “I can go the official route, but I don’t have time, and if it comes out that you’ve held up the most important murder investigation in modern Sweden, I’m sure your boss will be very pleased.”
It was quiet for a minute. “I’ll fax it,” said the bank officer.
“Like yesterday,” Söderstedt sang. “Thanks much!”
He hung up and tapped the fax machine. It soon began to spit out pages decorated with numbers. While it did, he called the housing cooperative and found out about the ownership of the apartment. He called the vehicle registry, the tax authorities, the boat registry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the land registry. And he called the men who were to watch Justine Lindberger.
“You’ll come along with me to Lindberger’s at eleven,” he said. “From that moment on, you can’t let her out of your sight.”
Then he half-danced out the door.
At eleven on the dot he was at the door intercom on Riddargatan. One minute later he was sitting on Justine Lindberger’s sofa.
“Nice apartment,” he said.
“Here’s my Filofax.” She handed it to him. He skimmed through it and seemed unconcerned, but his brain was working overtime. There had been seven mysterious celebrities in her uncensored agenda, which he had copied at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: G every other Monday at ten; PS on Sundays at four; S, who showed up at various times in the evenings; Bro, who appeared every Tuesday at different times; PPP on September 6 at 1:30; FJ all day on August 14; and CR on September 28 at 7:30 p.m. He had them all in his head and was struggling to look dumb as he battled his way through the official version of the Filofax.
“What’s G?” he said. “And PS?”