‘What’s your point?’ Bäckström said.
‘I have a little proposal,’ Toivonen said.
‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said.
‘I don’t give a damn about our so-called colleagues over in internal investigations,’ Toivonen said. ‘I’m not the sort to snitch on a fellow officer. If someone becomes too much of a problem I usually grab him by the ears. We sort that kind of thing inside the station. That’s the way we’ve always done things out here in Solna.’
‘Your proposal,’ Bäckström said. ‘You were saying that you had a proposal.’
‘We have a growing number of colleagues who are starting to get fucking sick and tired of your comments in the media. We can probably put up with the rest of it if we have to. If you want to carry on taking a shit in the papers, I think you should change jobs. Maybe you could become a crime reporter, or replace that tired old professor on the National Police Board, that Persson bloke, the one who’s on Crimewatch, droning on every Thursday. If you keep your mouth shut, we’ll keep our mouths shut. But if you carry on shooting your mouth off, I’m afraid that both these pictures and the bar tab and all the other things that I and my colleagues have got in our bottom drawer will suddenly appear on the news desk of one of the really vicious newspapers. Wasn’t that one of the things you wanted, by the way? Greater openness toward the media from the police?’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Bäckström said.
‘Good,’ Toivonen said. ‘And since you’re not soft in the head, I presume we have an agreement. How are things going with your investigation, by the way?’
‘Fine,’ Bäckström said. ‘I anticipate that it’ll be all finished by Monday.’
‘I’m listening,’ Toivonen said.
‘We can take it then,’ Bäckström said, standing up.
‘I can hardly wait,’ Toivonen said with a grin.
See you at the press conference, Bäckström thought. He gave a curt nod and walked out.
88.
‘How did it go?’ Annika Carlsson asked. ‘I was almost starting to worry.’
‘It’s fine,’ Bäckström said.
‘So what did he want? He was completely furious when he stormed in to see me. I was almost starting to worry.’
‘My fucking old fox,’ Bäckström said. ‘He just needed some advice and help from his old supervisor and mentor.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Annika Carlsson said with a wry smile. ‘So what are we going to do with our case, then?’
‘The usual,’ Bäckström said. ‘We go out hard against the suspect, telephone surveillance, the whole works, silent, invisible, untraceable. Give Nadja a call as well; she can come in and help. I’ll sign for the overtime. I think we can manage without the youngsters, and I don’t think we want to drag Alm into this.’
‘There doesn’t seem to be a phone,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘At least I can’t find one.’
‘Oh, it’s there, all right,’ Bäckström said. ‘That’s the cell phone that both Danielsson and Akofeli call. The one that only ever seems to get incoming calls. If we’re lucky it’s still around. And there has to be a landline as well.’
‘I’ve already started on that,’ Annika Carlsson confirmed.
‘Well, then,’ Bäckström said with a wry smile. ‘On Monday I think it’ll be time to get out the handcuffs.’
89.
Early on Sunday morning Hassan Talib suffered further bleeding in the brain. The doctor who saved his life less than a week before had to make another attempt. This time it didn’t go so well. The operation was abandoned after just a quarter of an hour and Talib was declared dead at half past five in the morning in the neurosurgical department of the Karolinska Hospital.
It was never good when people like Talib died. There were far too many people like him who might start to get ideas. Five minutes later Superintendent Honkamäki decided to increase security. He spoke to Toivonen and Linda Martinez. Toivonen had taken the formal decision and called in another six uniformed officers and six surveillance officers.
The uniformed officers would reinforce external security. The surveillance officers would roam the hospital precinct and buildings hoping to discover suspicious vehicles and individuals in time, or simply anything that seemed out of the ordinary.
At nine o’clock that morning Frank Motoele had appeared in the orthopedic surgery department. He greeted his colleagues at the entrance, took the lift up to the seventh floor where Farshad Ibrahim lay locked in a single room with his left leg plastered from his ankle to his crotch.
‘Situation?’ Motoele asked, nodding to the officer who was sitting beside the entrance to the ward where Farshad Ibrahim was being looked after.
‘Everything’s fine,’ the officer said with a smile. ‘The patient’s asleep. I spoke to the ward sister a short while ago. They say he’s in a lot of pain and they keep pumping him full of painkillers, so we’re just going to have to deal with that. He spends most of the time asleep. If you want to talk to his little brother, he’s in the thoracic surgery department. Without a knife, this time.’
‘I might just take a stroll and have a look,’ Motoele said.
‘Go ahead,’ the officer said. ‘I’m going to hit the smoking room in the meantime. I’m going crazy here. That damn nicotine gum is a complete joke.’
There’s something not right here, Motoele thought, even before he opened the closed door to Farshad’s room.
Just to be on the safe side he pushed the door open with his foot, his hand on his pistol. The room was empty, the window was open, the bed had been dragged over to the window, and someone had tied an ordinary climbing rope to its legs.
Twenty meters to the slope seven floors below. Someone was already standing there, waiting for the man who was trying to lower himself down the rope in spite of his plastered leg. He had only got a few meters when Frank Motoele stuck his head out of the window.
Motoele grabbed the rope and started to reel it in. A simple task for a man like Motoele, one hundred kilos of muscle and bone, whereas Farshad Ibrahim on the other end of the rope scarcely weighed seventy. Besides, Farshad had made a mistake. Instead of easing his grip on the rope and just sliding down, he was clinging to it, and sliding up almost a meter before Motoele turned his gaze inward and let go of the rope. Farshad let go as well, falling helplessly and landing on his back almost twenty meters below. He died instantly. Only then did Motoele realize that Farshad’s accomplice had drawn a gun and was shooting at him.
He was a poor shot as well. Motoele, on the other hand, took his time. He pulled his weapon, crouched behind the window frame, aimed high on one leg, put both hands on the gun, both eyes open. Everything according to regulations, and if he was in luck he’d manage to hit the man’s femoral artery. The man below collapsed, dropping his gun and grabbing his wounded leg, screaming in a language Motoele didn’t understand.
Motoele, who had turned his gaze inward, holstered his weapon and went out into the corridor to meet his fellow officers. He could already hear the sounds of shouting and running.
Superintendent Honkamäki called Toivonen within thirty minutes and gave him a short status report. Someone had helped Farshad open the window of his room. The same person had given him an ordinary climbing rope, with knots in. About twenty meters long. Motoele had tried to reel him in. Farshad had lost his grip and fell, landing on his back on the slope twenty meters below. One of his accomplices had started shooting at Motoele. Several shots. Motoele had shot back. One shot. It hit high up on the leg. Rendered him harmless. The accomplice had been arrested, identified, and taken to the ER, just a hundred meters from orthopedic surgery. And they also had a good idea of who had helped Farshad with the window and rope.