Thomas leaned closer to the telephone. “Do you have the names of the two teenagers?”
“Yes, we have their names and addresses. The captain made a note of where they lived, just to be on the safe side. Thank goodness.” Marcus Björk no longer sounded quite so enthusiastic; anxiety was taking over.
“Excellent,” said Thomas, nodding at Margit. “Could you e-mail me the information as soon as possible?”
“Of course.” There was a brief silence. “Please let us know if we can be of assistance with anything else,” Marcus Björk said.
“Do you have CCTV cameras on board?” Margit asked.
“We do indeed, all over the ship.”
“In that case we would very much like the tapes from the Sunday before last. Monday to Wednesday as well, if you don’t mind. As soon as possible.”
“Absolutely; I’ll sort it out as soon as the ship gets back.”
Margit looked at the clock and sighed. “And when will that be?”
“Let’s see . . .” Judging from the sounds in the background, Marcus Björk was leafing through piles of paper.
“Surely he ought to know this off the top of his head,” Thomas muttered to Margit.
“Late this afternoon. She’s due out again at seven this evening.”
Margit twirled a pen between her fingers as Thomas ended the conversation.
“Could we possibly be lucky enough to find that the CCTV cameras caught Jonny Almhult and his killer?” Margit said. She tore off the sheet of paper on which she had been doodling, crumpled it up, and threw it with deadly accuracy into the trash can in the far corner. Then she gave Thomas a skeptical look. “Or would that be too much to hope for?”
He leafed through his notebook, where he had jotted down a reminder about tapping Viking Strindberg’s phone. “What did the prosecutor say about that phone tap we discussed?”
Margit rolled her eyes. “She didn’t like it, of course. They never do. But I just had to quote the relevant section from the Code of Judicial Procedure, chapter twenty-seven.” Margit knew it by heart. “Covert telephone surveillance may be used during a preliminary investigation into crimes that would incur a custodial sentence of no less than six months.” She looked very pleased with herself. “If someone’s smuggling booze worth millions from Systemet, then selling it tax-free to various restaurants, I think he’d go down for more than six months, don’t you?”
Thomas smiled to himself as he thought about Charlotte Öhman’s reluctance to give permission for the phone tap. The procedure didn’t sit well with many people’s perception of where the boundaries lay in a democratic society, but it was a powerful tool in a police investigation and often provided key pieces of evidence.
On this occasion the prosecutor appeared to have given in surprisingly quickly.
“It’s being set up today if our colleagues do as they’ve been told,” Margit said. “I’ve put Kalle on it. He’s also going through all the calls over the past few weeks.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do you think he might possibly find the odd call from Viking Strindberg to Philip Fahlén?” She weighed her cell phone in one hand, gazing at it. “I’m always surprised at how lax criminals are when they use their phones. I mean, everyone knows it’s possible to trace calls these days. We can even pinpoint the area where a call was made, more or less. It was easier to commit crimes back in the old days.”
CHAPTER 61
Thomas looked suspiciously at his beeping cell phone. He was speaking to Margit on the landline; she had given up for the evening and had gone home for something to eat. She had only just sat down at the table when Thomas called. He had interviewed the captain of the ferry on which Jonny Almhult was thought to have traveled.
“Margit, hang on. I’ve got a text. I’ll just check and see what it is.”
Thomas opened the message:
Philip Fahlén taken to the hospital by helicopter. Critical.
The message had been sent at 6:57, from Carina’s phone.
“What does it say?” Margit asked.
Thomas jumped; he had almost forgotten she was on the other end of the phone. He quickly read her the message.
“Does it say why?” she asked.
“No.” Thomas hesitated. Should he briefly summarize his discussion with the captain of the huge ferry? The man had more or less repeated what Marcus Björk had said. Or should he find out what had happened to Philip Fahlén? He decided on the latter. “Listen, I’ll speak to Carina and call you back.”
He hung up and called Carina.
She answered immediately. “I tried to call you,” she said, “but the line was busy, and I thought you’d want to know this right away.”
“What’s happened?” Thomas asked.
“Fahlén was picked up by the air ambulance on Sandhamn at around four o’clock this afternoon. They flew him to Danderyd hospital, and he’s in intensive care.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I couldn’t get much out of them; you know how sensitive patient confidentiality is.”
Thomas tried to suppress his impatience. “So what did they say?”
“It seems to be a brain hemorrhage. Apparently he was unconscious when the air ambulance picked him up.”
“A brain hemorrhage?” The surprise in Thomas’s voice was unmistakable.
Carina went on. “I’ll call again in an hour and see what I can find out. They should be able to tell me something about his condition, at least.”
Thomas’s thoughts began to wander. Had Fahlén suffered an ordinary stroke? Or had someone managed to get him to ingest enough rat poison to trigger a potentially fatal hemorrhage?
Which was what had happened to Kicki Berggren.
Was a pattern being repeated right before their eyes? And if so, who was responsible? If someone had poisoned Fahlén, then that person must also be behind the three deaths. They had no idea who that person was or where he might be, but it was absolutely essential to track him down.
“Call me as soon as you’ve spoken to them again, whatever time it is,” Thomas said. “And find out when we can go and speak to him.”
Carina sighed. “I’ve already asked, and it didn’t go well. The nurse I spoke to emphasized the fact that he could die; his condition is extremely serious. He might never regain consciousness. She almost told me off for even mentioning it.”
“Ask anyway. If he does come around, it’s absolutely essential that we have the chance to speak to him.”
“OK,” came the subdued response.
There was a brief silence before the connection was broken.
“Before we have another murder on our hands,” Thomas said.
CHAPTER 62
The fishing trip had been a great success. They had caught big, fat perch in the net, which had been lying in the water for several hours.
Adam was so proud when they got back. He was sitting in the middle of the boat, his whole face beaming, surrounded by the perch net, which was filled with seaweed.
“Look, Mom! Have you ever seen this many fish?”