‘Great,’ said Hultin. ‘In your spare time, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re starting to look tired, but we’ve got one so-called quadrant left. “Skansen”. Let’s see what our anonymous artist has written here. “Epivu”. We’re no further with that than we were before. I’m assuming the word is etched into your brains by now, preferably into the pain centre. So, “rope”. Being looked into by Jorge, I understand?’
‘Yep,’ said Chavez. ‘Samples should be arriving from the various factories today.’
‘Then there’s “metal wire”. Found. Part of Kerstin’s modus operandi check. Point number two is “pistol”. As yet, no news on the Luger’s serial number. But – and I started by promising you a little good news – the anonymous author’s very first point is “fingerprints”.’
Detective Superintendent Jan-Olov Hultin had the room’s undivided attention. He continued: ‘Interpol sent two matches for the wolverine man’s fingerprints. From two countries: Greece and Italy. Our man was Greek. His name was Nikos Voultsos, born in Athens in 1968. First conviction for assault in Greece in 1983, when he was fifteen. Then there’s a whole string of more or less serious crimes, including procuring.
‘He disappeared when he was suspected of the murder of three women in 1993. That was when he turned up in Italy. Not that he ever really turned up. Nikos Voultsos was clearly under constant suspicion by the Italian police, but they could never track him down. He went underground in Italy – in Milan to be more precise – where he committed at least twenty serious crimes: protection racket, drugs, assault, rapes, murder. And then procuring again. In other words, our man is actually a pimp.’
Sara looked at Kerstin. Kerstin looked at Sara. The glance they exchanged was a satisfied one.
‘The details from the Italian police are quite vague,’ Hultin continued, ‘but between the lines, it might indicate “organised crime”. And what that means in Italy is pretty clear.’
‘The Mafia?’ asked Chavez.
‘If we’re being really precise,’ said Hultin, ‘the Mafia’s a Sicilian phenomenon. Naples has its Camorra, which is similar. And then there’s a northern equivalent, which is just as powerful. It seems as though Nikos Voultsos ran brothels for the north Italian Mafia. If we can call it that.’
‘And then he came to little old Sweden,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘To run brothels for the north Italian Mafia?’
‘And got himself eaten by wolverines instead,’ said Chavez. ‘That’s what you call an alternative career path.’
‘The Italian police were clearly keeping an eye on him. They lost track of him in the middle of April. He died in Skansen on the third of May. It’s easy to imagine the bigwigs in Milan thinking the attention was getting too much and sending him away. Like in The Godfather. Michael Corleone. But he was probably on a mission. It doesn’t seem too much of a leap to assume it had something to do with the procuring side of the business.’
Kerstin Holm was thinking aloud. ‘A week or so before they disappeared, the women in rooms 224, 225, 226 and 227 of the motel in Slagsta started getting uneasy. That takes us back to around the twenty-fifth of April. Maybe we can assume that was when Nikos Voultsos arrived? The first call from the violent Odenplan woman was made to Slagsta on Saturday the twenty-ninth of April. They called one another right up to 22.54 on Wednesday evening, not long after Voultsos died in Skansen. A couple of hours later, they disappeared.’
‘They were freed,’ Sara Svenhagen said breathlessly.
‘She really is a ninja feminist,’ Jorge Chavez said, receiving a surprised look from his wife.
‘If that’s the case,’ Kerstin continued, ‘then she murdered a Mafia man. Once you’ve done that, you probably have to disappear sharpish.’
‘It all fits,’ said Paul Hjelm. ‘It’s all coherent. But where the hell does Leonard Sheinkman come into it? What does an eighty-eight-year-old professor emeritus like Leonard Sheinkman have to do with a man like Nikos Voultsos, with north Italian Mafia whorehouses and ninja feminists with violent tendencies? Why was he of all people murdered in the same way as a notorious rapist and killer? It makes no sense.’
‘I agree,’ said Hultin. ‘Is it just a coincidence? Maybe he got in the way? Hardly. Someone hated him intensely, but it’s by no means certain it’s the woman you’re calling the ninja feminist, whatever that is. The link to her is too vague.’
‘Do we have any pictures of this Nikos Voultsos?’ Kerstin Holm asked.
‘Of course,’ Hultin replied, holding up a colour picture of a swarthy-looking man with cold eyes. A classic gangster. He was smiling wryly, dressed in a summery light pink suit, and wearing a thick gold chain around his neck.
‘I hope he was good,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘At least in that sense.’
‘If you go to Slagsta, Sara,’ Hultin said, ‘take this photo with you and show it to everyone. Someone up there might’ve seen him, despite everything.’
Sara nodded silently.
‘We’re going to need to work more closely with the Italian police,’ said Hjelm. ‘We’re still missing a lot of information.’
Jan-Olov Hultin stood up and leaned forward over the desk.
‘That’s just the beauty of it,’ he croaked. ‘We’ve got a man on the scene.’
16
ANJA SAW IT long before he did. Five children saw it long before he did. The entire world saw it long before he did.
That he had, just maybe, had ever so slightly too much ‘beauty’ and ‘peace’.
Arto Söderstedt wandered around the little stone house in Chianti, telling himself he was still enjoying it as much as ever. As the spring evenings turned into night, he sat on the porch with a small glass of Vin Santo, dipping his cinnamon biscotti and thinking: I’m enjoying this. And of course he was still enjoying it. Of course the regenerative powers of the Renaissance had been making their way all the way up to his rustic Tuscan bedroom. Of course marital life was blossoming like never before; he half suspected Anja might be planning a sixth child – what had happened to the usual preventative precautions? And, of course, it was still utterly agreeable to be able to sleep as long as he liked in the mornings, before diving into the books he wanted to read, the music he wanted to listen to, the wine and coffee he wanted to drink, the bits and pieces he wanted to busy himself with. But somehow, somewhere, it still wasn’t quite enough. Somehow, the fruits of Uncle Pertti’s money weren’t quite enough.
Anja, on the other hand, was enjoying herself to the full, but she didn’t make such a big deal out of her enjoyment. Arto possessed the male species’ tendency to display his well-being to all – displays which have a tendency to consume whatever is being displayed. In the end, the show becomes the main event. And so at that moment, he was living in a shell made from the enjoyment of life. If someone were to inadvertently bump the surface, it would crack and break into pieces and Arto Söderstedt would find himself staring down into the deepest, darkest infernal abyss.
Well, not quite. But occasionally, as he sat there on the porch looking out at Anja’s increasingly magnificent plants, it struck him that he was an addict.
A work addict in detox.
Anja had one passion in life – other than Arto, whom she probably loved as intensely as he loved her. Her second passion was herbs. During their time living in Västerås, she had pursued that passion with a burning frenzy; in the pots lining the windows on Bondegatan, things had been slightly more hesitant. But here, in Tuscany, in the heart of Chianti, in the immediate vicinity of the wonderful little medieval town of Montefioralle, crowning the hillside outside the wine capital, Greve – here, her passion was blooming. She never wanted to leave. The garden was bathed in the most delightful of scents. Her fingers were greener than ever and, according to locals, no one in the whole of Chianti had ever managed to grow sixteen different types of basil. The fact was, they hadn’t even known there were so many different kinds. Still, they were impressed, the neighbours.