Eventually, Chavez said, pointing: ‘Especially for you, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present a curious breakthrough in the investigation. Three photographs of Tjärhovsgatan by Björns trädgård at 21.43 on Wednesday the twenty-third of June. A week ago. Pictures without parallel when it comes to the concentration of crooks.’
Hjelm and Holm looked at one another.
‘In other words, the pictures were taken a minute after the Kvarnen Killer smashed a beer glass on the head of a poor Smålander inside the bar, the entrance of which can be seen here in picture one,’ said Chavez, pointing. ‘In the middle, we have the Kvarnen Killer himself. To the right, by the wall, we have Gang Two. Minus Eskil Carlstedt and Niklas Lindberg who were, at that time, inside Kvarnen and Kumla prison, respectively. Up to the left, we have Gang One, complete with 1C here in the doorway. The driver of the Merc.’
It was completely silent in the Supreme Command Centre.
‘Picture two,’ Chavez continued in the same slightly irritating, triumphant tone. ‘Gang One is gone, the Kvarnen Killer is gone. But you can see Gang Two more clearly here. And here, beside 2B, Sven Joakim Bergwall, we’ve probably got our three unnamed robbers. Carlstedt, or 2A, the other one who died at Sickla, is inside Kvarnen, waiting to deal with the police. These three should all still be alive, though one’s injured. So, these are three of the four Sickla killers that we’re looking for. The picture’s good enough to identify them, and I spent yesterday doing just that. It wasn’t easy, but we should have enough to release the identities of all four robbers now, if you want to release them.’
He stopped talking for a moment, glancing around the silent room. Sure enough, he had their undivided attention. Then he began to draw red circles around the four faces, one after one.
‘This is Sven Joakim Bergwall, the man shot in the face. He’s followed by this man, a real jailbird called Dan Andersson, often called Danne Blood Pudding because of the burns he suffered as a young offender when a large chunk of his skin turned purple. I’m not sure how they got to blood pudding from that. Andersson’s thirty-eight and has been convicted of – wait for it – eighty-six crimes, mainly bank robberies, since the age of fifteen. He left Kumla in February and was a member of that so-called Nazi clique in there, even if the right-wing extremism has never been one of his main activities. He’s a professional criminal, simple as that.
‘This man is Roger Sjöqvist, the only member of the gang convicted of murder. Thirty-three, bodybuilder with a military background. Killed a drug dealer ten years ago, escaped when he was on leave from Tidaholm a year ago, and has been lying low ever since. He appears more frequently in right-wing extremist circles and was probably involved in a number of bank robberies. He’s a wanted man.
‘Finally, this man, the shorter of the well-built men, is the technician in the gang. Agne Kullberg, called Bullet because a tough guy can’t have a name like Agne. He’s only been inside once, for assault and battery. Was released six years ago. He beat up and blinded a Turkish pizza chef in Hagsätra. He’s thirty-six and trained as a civil engineer when he was inside, specialising in telecommunications. He’s never had any work as a civil engineer, though. Doesn’t feature directly in a right-wing extremist context, but he’s a member of a dodgy shooting club which also had two of our more notorious colleagues from Norrmalm’s police as members, as well as Bergwall.’
‘Where the hell did these pictures come from?’ Hultin exclaimed, staring at the enlargements.
‘Can’t we wait a minute before going into that?’ Chavez asked, continuing: ‘We’ve still got picture three. In this one, Gang Two have disappeared as well. It’s from when the doormen managed to block the door in Kvarnen. The Hammarby fans are still there, talking; they know it’ll be a few minutes before the police arrive, that there’s no rush. The queue, apparently full of “difficult immigrants”, didn’t exist, as you can see. Just fans. Apart from this man, who’s sadly almost completely hidden behind the fans and who, in all probability, is our so-called “policeman”.’
They looked at the figure. He could hardly be seen at all. Only the very left edge of him. He might have been dark-haired. Maybe he was wearing jeans. His right shoe was clearest. Nike Air trainers.
‘We’ll see what the technicians can do with the picture,’ said Chavez. ‘They’re working flat out.’
‘Where are the pictures from?’ Hultin asked, mustering his best ice-cold neutrality.
Chavez looked at him. There was a pause which seemed to go on for an eternity. A trial of strength. Hjelm sensed that he was looking at the beginnings of a future power struggle.
‘They were taken from a high spot nearby,’ said Chavez, telling them nothing in particular.
‘Haglund’s Semi,’ exclaimed Södermalm inhabitant, Arto Söderstedt.
Chavez was silent.
‘Where are the pictures from?’ Hultin repeated, iciness intact.
Chavez broke free from the clinch hold and leaned back against the ropes, catching his breath.
‘I can’t say for the moment,’ was all he said.
‘My room,’ said Hultin.
Chavez nodded. Then he said: ‘Just let me sum up first.’
Hultin allowed him to sum up first.
‘Times,’ said Chavez, following the Hultin model and drawing a kind of flow chart onto the whiteboard. ‘Where does this story start? What comes first? The “policeman” prepares an attack on Nedic? Why? Does he have something to sell? Is it blackmail? Is it the start of a future collaboration? In any case, he makes contact with Nedic, and Nedic goes along with delivering whatever was in that famous briefcase. It’s looking more and more like money.
‘Somehow, someone in what turns out to be Gang Two finds out that a handover is going to take place. Considering Niklas Lindberg seems to be the driving force, we can assume that it was him, or at least his so-called “Nazi clique” in Kumla, who found out about the delivery. Probably via Nedic’s right-hand man, Lordan Vukotic. Sven Joakim Bergwall and Dan Andersson are part of this gang. Andersson is released in February, so he’s probably already out when the information reaches the “clique”. Bergwall, who was released in May, and Lindberg, who was released on the morning of the twenty-fourth of June, were still inside. Maybe they happen to overhear some part of a conversation that Vukotic is having with someone inside. They realise that it’s about something big – probably just a lot of money – and they bide their time, join forces with their prison friend Dan Andersson plus Bergwall’s mate from the shooting club, the civil engineer Agne “Bullet” Kullberg, and a couple of right-wing extremist friends – the as-yet-clean Eskil Carlstedt and the murderer Roger Sjöqvist.
‘Bit by bit, they work out that a meeting’s going to take place in Kvarnen. It turns out it’s going to happen the night before Niklas Lindberg gets out. He probably thinks this seems like a happy coincidence, so he pulls Lordan Vukotic’s shoulders out of joint the same evening, to get the information out of him or just because he enjoys it. But the fact that Vukotic keeps quiet about it suggests it wasn’t just a bit of fun for Lindberg. In other words, Lindberg manages to get information out of Vukotic, probably the provisional meeting place for the handover; the other details are going to be decided in Kvarnen by the “policeman” and Nedic’s men: Gang One.
‘The “policeman” has picked a public place like Kvarnen because he’s afraid of Nedic’s men; he obviously knows what they’re capable of, after the genocides in the former Yugoslavia. Maybe they’re also working out some kind of insurance policy, so that both the “policeman” and Gang One know they’ll be leaving the meeting place alive. Maybe that’s what their conversation in English was about. Anyway, we’ve got five men led by Sven Joakim Bergwall there, too. Eskil Carlstedt, Dan Andersson, Roger Sjöqvist and Agne Kullberg are there, the latter wearing an earpiece. He’s managed to plant a microscopic listening device under the table where the “policeman” and Gang One are sitting. When the Hammarby fans start flooding in, they’re about to reach some kind of negotiated solution. Even though it starts getting crowded, they keep going. And Gang Two sits there, listening from the table against the opposite wall, even though they’re constantly being disturbed by the Hammarby fans. They must’ve reached a solution – at two the following morning in the Sickla industrial estate – just before one of the Hammarby fans decides to smash a glass on a Smålander’s head. Both Gang One and Gang Two realise they’ve got to leave as quickly as possible. Still, both manage to rapidly think the situation through. Everyone in the pub suddenly becomes a witness. Neither of the gangs can go unnoticed any longer. They know their presence is going to be remembered. That the police are going to be analysing every single detail of the scene in Kvarnen. The “policeman” makes sure the Slavs leave before him, so that they’re not linked to one another; he stays behind for a few seconds longer and is forced to show his ID to get out. We can assume that Bergwall makes sure that the only one without a record, Carlstedt, stays behind to take the questioning, and turns the mysterious gang with an earpiece into a group of salesmen out chasing women. It works. They spend the night going through their plans. Carlstedt will wait in Stockholm and come up with a nice story for the police while Bergwall, Andersson, Sjöqvist and Kullberg drive to Kumla to pick up Lindberg. They’re probably not expecting him to blow up the bunker while they’re out in the open, but he does it not least to show them who’s boss. Power markers are always important in the criminal world, as you know.