‘What’s that?’ Hultin asked patiently.
‘Witness statements from the bank,’ said Chavez. ‘Four robbers. Three wearing black balaclavas, one in another colour. Gold. Maybe you remember the gold thread from Sickla…’
Hultin nodded but objected all the same. ‘First, they steal a nice, juicy amount from Rajko Nedic, probably millions, and then they continue with a series of small, risky robberies on the west coast? The smallest of these generated 4,212 kronor. Sounds unlikely.’
‘It is unlikely ,’ said Söderstedt.
Again, all eyes turned to him. He was holding something back, that much was clear.
‘It’s unlikely for the very reason that the premise is all wrong,’ he explained. ‘If we change the premise, then it’s not only likely, but true.’
His clarification didn’t exactly help to clarify the matter.
‘I’d like to come back to the matter,’ he ended, staring at the wall.
Chavez felt that he should be angry. To his surprise, he wasn’t. Curiosity had taken over. He jumped down from the desk, and returned to his normal seat.
‘Kerstin?’ Hultin said.
‘Yup,’ said Kerstin Holm, climbing up onto the podium and attaching a large photograph to the whiteboard using the ladybird magnets. ‘This can be a little interlude while we wait for Arto’s revelation. As you know, we’ve caught the Kvarnen Killer; a timid, invisible little man called Conny Nilsson. Hardly a bloodthirsty killer. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s almost like he was just a pawn in something bigger going on at the same time. A young, slightly apathetic man who suddenly, without knowing how, realises that there’s a blood-soaked handle in his hand. I don’t know, but there’s something awful there that I can’t quite put my finger on. Anyway, the fact that we’ve caught him hardly makes it any easier to get hold of the witnesses from Kvarnen again. The whole lot seem to have gone on holiday or been scattered by the wind. Paul and I have been trying to find something on the “policeman”. A couple of the witnesses seem to have disappeared from the surface of the earth, it took a lot of effort to get hold of some of the others. We’re finally starting to get somewhere. It seems increasingly likely that the “policeman” was dark-haired and had a beard. They all seem sure he was under forty. The witness with the best memory, the so-called “Hard Homo”, insists that the “policeman” had a little black beard; you know, the kind that sort of circles the mouth. And if we look closely at the most accurate, cleaned-up enlargement of the photo, where he’s almost completely hidden behind the Hammarby fans, then we can – here – clearly see a bit of such a beard.’
‘And then,’ said Paul Hjelm, ‘we asked ourselves where we last saw a policeman with that kind of beard. Still under the assumption that he really is a policeman, of course. It wasn’t so long since we last met a dark-haired policeman, just the right age, with the right beard. Though there must be a lot of them.’
‘Oh God,’ Chavez exclaimed. Sara loomed in his mind. The wonderful Sara Svenhagen. Walls raised between them. He continued with good speed: ‘Sara’s boss.’
Gunnar Nyberg started, staring sceptically at him. Was that really his figure of light being alluded to? What did she have to do with Jorge? And his own – other – boss? Party-Ragge?
‘Let’s keep very, very calm,’ Jan-Olov Hultin articulated, slowly and explicitly. ‘No one, and I mean no one, is throwing any rash accusations about colleagues around before we’ve had time to check the facts very, very thoroughly. Do you understand? Is there any reason at all that we should suspect Detective Superintendent Ragnar Hellberg? Just because he has a small, dark beard? I think we need a bit more than that.’
‘Are you talking about Ragnar Hellberg?’ Nyberg exclaimed. ‘Party-Ragge? But he’s completely… harmless.’
‘You can’t claim that any of CID’s superintendents are completely harmless,’ Hultin said curtly, glaring at Nyberg. ‘But Gunnar is essentially right: there’s no reason at all to suspect Ragnar Hellberg or any other policeman in particular. Let’s get on with the real business. Right, Gunnar?’
Nyberg was still completely taken by surprise. First, this business with Jorge and Sara – then Party-Ragge. In his eyes, Party-Ragge was the make-up plastered onto the face of the paedophile group, a figurehead who would adorn a sturdy but unspectacular vessel. Signed Ludvig Johnsson.
The Party Policeman versus the Hermit Policeman.
He regained his wits and began, in a distant tone, to deliver his own triumphant little speech.
‘Niklas Lindberg can’t have eavesdropped on any conversation between Rajko Nedic’s men in Kumla, because they always speak Serbo-Croat among themselves; that’s a characteristic of the entire gang. That means someone must’ve squealed. First, someone blabbed that a big handover was going to take place, and that there’d be a preliminary meeting in Kvarnen on the twenty-third of June, the day before Lindberg would be released. Then, Lindberg tortured Vukotic to find out where the delivery was going to take place, while his men found out the same thing by eavesdropping on the meeting in Kvarnen. A double check, as you said. But – what started it all was someone else, something unique, a leak within the Nedic circle. This snitch, having performed his duties in the ethnic-cleansing business, enlisted in the Foreign Legion, where he met a Swede sharing his extreme right-wing ideology. This Swede was Niklas Lindberg. When the two of them, for different reasons, ended up in Kumla, the snitch became Lindberg’s link to the Nedic empire. This snitch’s name is Risto Petrovic.’
‘“A couple of Slavs of the same kind”,’ said the newly woken Viggo Norlander energetically. The others were convinced he was talking in his sleep.
‘Risto Petrovic,’ Gunnar Nyberg continued, ‘is now being guarded as a potential Crown witness in a secret location. In all likelihood, he could tell us a lot about his ideological kinsman Niklas Lindberg and about his employer, Rajko Nedic. On the other hand, he doesn’t have any idea where Lindberg and his men are now.’
‘But Arto does,’ said Hultin neutrally, while the others continued to stare in amazement at Nyberg, who had already slumped back into his chair.
‘We should’ve checked their backgrounds,’ said Söderstedt, soul-searchingly.
‘It wouldn’t have helped,’ said Nyberg. ‘Petrovic used a false name in the Legion. Jovan Sotra. And also, Niklas Lindberg wasn’t in the picture yet.’
‘Still,’ Söderstedt persisted meaninglessly, standing up. He went over to the whiteboard, and shook his head in disappointment before fastening an enormous map over the top of all the photographs, arrows and notes. It showed half of Sweden. The southern half. Three squiggles, each a different colour, had been drawn onto different places on the map – like streamers left behind after a crayfish party.
‘Well, everyone,’ he began distractedly. ‘I’ve found something really strange. It might be a coincidence, probably not. The other day, I noticed – after some serious thinking – a series of cryptic messages on the THIS WEEK’S ‘I LOVE YOU’ page of the online version of Gula Tidningen. Two parties, exchanging information about their location, using references to the literary masterpiece that is our nation’s favourite atlas. The thing that caught my attention was that they were quoting the Florento sisters. Do you remember them?’
‘Yeah,’ Kerstin Holm nodded. ‘Sex slaves who rebelled and stole a whole load of money from their pimp.’
‘Roughly, yes. Why would you quote criminals on the THIS WEEK’S ‘I LOVE YOU’ page? In any case, I contacted Gula Tidningen and they sent backups of the entire series of messages. Since Midsummer’s Eve, they’ve exchanged information sixteen times each. Which has given us two routes. The yellow one, here, goes through two counties: Dalarna and Västmanland. The blue one, here, goes through two more: Halland and Västergötland. The yellow route goes from Orsa to Köping, the blue from Falkenberg to Skara. Messages about Köping and Skara were posted online only a couple of hours ago. Ten minutes before we gathered here, we also had a message about a new robbery, a petrol station in Falköping. According to witness statements, the robber was wearing a coloured balaclava that could best be described as gold. And if we turn the robberies that we know of – Skillingaryd, Ängelholm, Mellbystrand, Halmstad, Varberg, Ulricehamn, Gothenburg, Falköping – into a route – this red one, here – then we can see that the red route is getting closer and closer to the blue one.’