Yes, thought Paul Hjelm. Of course, Kerstin, that’s it.
He said: ‘But the league stays behind. To murder an old man.’
‘Yeah, that’s the blow. You know what I mean – when everything seems to be making sense and then along comes the disappointment, flooding in and muddying everything else.’
‘I know all too well,’ said Paul Hjelm.
‘Do you know what I’m doing?’ asked Kerstin.
‘You’re wondering about the fate of the girls. Lublin onwards.’
‘Aside from that? Practically?’
‘I haven’t got the faintest idea. Washing your underwear? Pulling burrs from your hair? Cutting your toenails with hedge clippers?’
‘Looking at a growing list.’
Kerstin Holm was in her office, looking at a growing list. Viggo Norlander was sitting right next to her, looking at her as she looked at the growing list. She was a glorious woman. He wondered why he had never realised that before. Him, an expert after several years’ intense interaction with the opposite sex in all of Stockholm’s imaginable and unimaginable singles bars – before suddenly finding himself, at the age of fifty, with a live-in partner and a small baby. And all that had happened as a direct result of being crucified by the Russian-Estonian mafia, on a floor in Tallinn.
It was complicated.
It was probably because little Charlotte was learning to walk that he had regained his eye for the opposite sex. He didn’t quite understand the link, but it was a fact. Fortunately, Astrid kept him busy, meaning that this eye remained theoretical.
The growing list on the screen was simply Kerstin Holm’s inbox. It was growing bigger and bigger until eventually she had received emails from eight different police authorities.
‘Eight,’ she said to the astonished mobile phone.
‘Explain right now,’ the astonished mobile phone exhorted.
‘The big inquiry through Europol and Interpol is starting to bring in results. General appeal for information to all the bigger police authorities in Europe. Something like the three hundred biggest cities on the Continent. I don’t know if the answers are affirmative yet, but eight of these three hundred cities have something to say about our modus operandi.’
The eight emails were sitting there, their titles in bold. Once she clicked on them, the font normalised after a few seconds. Once they had emptied their bowels.
Message one: Information from Dublin. Detective Superintendent Radcliffe. ‘I’m wondering whether I didn’t hear about something similar in the former DDR. Get in touch with Benziger in Weimar. No idea what his title is, but he’s friendly. As you also seem to be, Ms Holm.’
Message two: A telling-off from Paris. Chief Superintendent Mérimée. ‘Misuse of Europol resources. Should be used exclusively for combating the following points: unlawful drug trafficking, crimes involving illicit immigration networks, illicit vehicle trafficking, the trafficking of human beings (including child pornography), the forgery of money and other means of payment, the illicit trafficking of nuclear or other radioactive material, terrorism and the illicit laundering of money in relation to any of the above crimes.’
Message three: Confirmation from Budapest. Detective Superintendent Mészöly. ‘Very interesting. We had a similar case in October ’99. Twenty-nine-year-old man, active in the prostitution branch, hung upside down and with a kind of metal wire inserted into his temple. We would gladly familiarise ourselves with your investigation, and you can, of course, have access to ours.’
Message four: Another confirmation, this time from Maribor, Slovenia. Police Chief Sremac. ‘Same thing here in March. Serious criminal strung up, skull penetrated. Awaiting further information.’
Messages five, six and seven: Yet more confirmations, from Wiesbaden in Germany, Antwerp in Belgium, and Venice, Italy. Chief Inspector Roelants in Antwerp added: ‘Don’t be surprised, Ms Holm, if more confirmations turn up. Those of us who have experienced this crime have been in internal, official contact for several months. My judgement, however, is that, so far, none of us have managed to establish any direct links between the cases.’
Message eight: Inquiry from Stockholm. Division Chief Waldemar Mörner. ‘Who in high heavens authorised this inquiry? Whose budget will this come out of? WM.’
Kerstin Holm called Paul Hjelm.
‘They’ve been at it just over a year,’ she said.
‘In Europe?’ he asked.
‘In Budapest, Maribor, Wiesbaden, Antwerp and Venice so far. If we include our victims, that means seven people have been strung up and had their cerebral cortex pierced. Add to that Hamid al-Jabiri from Odenplan metro station and it’s eight dead. There don’t seem to have been any wolverines anywhere else.’
‘What kind of victims?’
‘They seem to have been serious criminals, the lot of them. Everyone but Leonard Sheinkman.’
‘Do any of your contacts suspect a link to Ghiottone?’
‘No. But it’s all rudimentary so far. We’ll exchange investigations.’
‘Online? Is that really secure?’
‘What is secure nowadays?’ asked Kerstin Holm.
And with that, she was gone. Paul Hjelm cursed the invention of the mobile phone and hung up.
19
12 February 1945
At long last, I have managed to get hold of some paper and a pencil. I shan’t waste time and energy explaining how; I have much too little of either of those to spare. My time is running out, my strength ebbing away. I can feel it, I know it. It will soon be my turn. I have seen the list. I have seen my name on the list. Leonard Sheinkman, it said. Me. It seems only fair to be clear about that from the beginning. To avoid any misunderstandings.
This may be the very last thing I write in this life and I don’t want to waste it on petty details. I have done more than enough of that.
I truly wish it were possible to describe love. I am an author, describing is what I do, and yet I cannot do it. Well then, who can? Perhaps it is only possible afterwards, once it is all too late.
If that is true, it should be possible now.
My son…
No. Not today. Today won’t do.
Today I will simply have to make do with the pleasure of once more feeling the weight of a pencil in my hand, once more being able to caress the smooth paper beneath it.
Once upon a time, writing was what made me live. Will it simply be the memory of this I experience when pencil meets paper, or will I live again? One last flourish?
13 February 1945
It is so strange to see time. It is outside the window. My friends here, they are distant. They aren’t friends, they are fellows in misfortune – the type of man best avoided, since they simply reflect yourself. Do I look the way they look? I am thirty-three years old and I probably look like an old corpse. There are men much younger than me here and they look older than the image I have of myself. I hope to be able to retain that image until I die.
That should be possible; it won’t be far off.
I see time. One might think it is nothing but a black clock tower, something physical, a timepiece with a complex mechanical motion, a tower constructed to keep the ravages of time in check. Each second is the tower’s triumph; each second of the ageing which has gone on century after century, marked by the mechanical precision of the clock. But that isn’t what I see. What I see is time.
I cannot explain it, and yet I must try. Why else would this pencil be resting in my hand, why else would all this effort have gone towards placing time here, right here, at the point of pencil meeting paper?