The woman sat opposite them and fidgeted with her necklace. A thin gold chain, with a name engraved on a small ornament that hung from it. The girl couldn’t stop staring at the chain. The woman twirled it between her fingers, stroked and fingered the shimmering ornament. The girl tried to read the name but it was hard to see the letters between the woman’s fingers. She saw M... A... M.
The van jerked to a stop. That same moment she saw the last letter and she put them all together in her head to form a word: Mama.
The woman gave the girl an irritated look. She didn’t say anything but the girl understood that the time had come.
Now they would leave the van.
And carry out their mission.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE POLICE CRIME-SCENE tape vibrated in the wind. The dock area had been cordoned off and a lot of people had gathered, curious to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the other side of the police tape.
Anneli Lindgren was there working methodically in the chilly hall. Gunnar ?hrn had called in another two forensic experts one of whom had come from Link?ping, and they now sat beside the dead man. They had been working with the body for two hours.
Gunnar and Henrik stood outside, freezing. They hadn’t even considered taking their hats with them—they thought they were only going to talk with a witness. But they had discovered a dead man instead, and their mission at the docks had changed.
“I’m finished,” Anneli eventually called out and waved to them to come back in. “As far as I can see, he died here. He suffered powerful blows to the throat and head. I’ll let Bj?rn Ahlmann take over from here.”
She pulled off her gloves and looked directly at Gunnar.
“The third one,” she said.
“I know. I KNOW. Do you think they are related? Any similarities?” he said.
“Maybe related, but no similarities as to manner of death. Hans Juhlén and the boy were both shot, but by different weapons. This man has been beaten to death. A heavy blow to the head. Traces of bruising around his neck.”
“The boy had that too.”
“True, but apart from that there are no similarities. Unfortunately.”
Anneli pulled out her camera.
“I just need to take some pictures of the area,” she said.
Henrik nodded and looked at the man on the floor.
“He’s around sixty,” he said to Gunnar.
“We’ve asked the manager to come to the station and identify him,” said Gunnar.
“Now?” said Henrik.
“At four.”
“We’ll have a briefing after that. I must get hold of Ola first. And Mia. She never answers.”
Henrik’s shoulders sagged.
The rest of Saturday was wrecked.
*
The price was 12990 kronor. In installments. No interest. No charges the first six months. Perfect.
Mia Bolander folded the receipt and smiled at the shop assistant, then maneuvered her 50-inch TV with 3D out of the store. It even came with a special digital-TV package. That alone was worth 99 kronor a month. The contract was for 24 months. It was worth it. Now at last she had a state-of-the-art flat screen and all the film channels. She could just about fit the carton into her wine-red Fiat Punto if she left the hatch open. On her way home, Mia wondered whether she might invite a couple of friends over for the evening to celebrate. If she provided the venue, perhaps they could be persuaded to bring along booze and nosh. She felt in her pocket for her phone but the pocket was empty. The other one was as well.
Back in her flat she found her cell with no charge under one of her pillows in her unmade bed. She dug out her charger and plugged it in. Before she could phone her friend, the telephone vibrated in her hand.
It was Gunnar ?hrn.
*
“Mia will soon be here,” said Gunnar and looked up at the little group of people seated around the conference table in front of him.
Henrik Levin had a grim expression. He was clearly affected by the discovery of yet another murder. Anneli Lindgren looked tired, too.
Ola S?derstr?m, however, looked alert, almost upbeat as he drummed lightly on the table.
Only Jana Berzelius seemed her regular self. She sat ready with her notepad and pen. Her long hair was neatly blown dry and down as usual.
Gunnar started by welcoming them all, and apologized for having had to mobilize the whole team this late on a Saturday.
“Mia is on her way, but we can start without her. The reason for this meeting is Thomas Rydberg, who was found murdered today at 08:30 in the docks.”
He paused. Nobody asked any questions.
“This is the third person found dead in a week.”
Gunnar went up to the whiteboard where photos of all three victims had been posted, and he pointed to one of them.
“Here we have Hans Juhlén, shot in his home on Sunday evening April 15. No sign of a break-in. No witnesses. But on a security camera we saw this boy...”
Gunnar moved his finger from the portrait to an enlarged still from the security camera footage.
“...who, on Wednesday morning, April 18, was discovered dead at Viddviken, also shot, but by a different weapon. Everything seems to point to him, however, as being the perpetrator who murdered Hans Juhlén. But why? That we don’t know.”
Gunnar put his finger on the third photo. “And today we found Thomas Rydberg. He has been identified by staff from the docks. Sixty-one, married, two grown-up children who live on their own, he’s worked in the docks all his life, and lives in Sv?rtinge.
“Apparently he had a bit of a temper when he was young and had been convicted of assault and threatening behavior. For the last few years he has been sober. The forensic team says he was beaten to death and that his body had been in the warehouse a while, which means the murder probably took place yesterday afternoon or evening.”
“But how do we know that this murder is connected to the other two?” Ola wondered out loud.
“We don’t,” said Gunnar. “At the moment we know very little. But the murder has landed in our lap. And the one connection we do have is that Hans Juhlén was also in the docks area a few days before he was murdered.”
Gunnar looked gravely at the team.
“We’ve got a lot to do, to put it mildly. The boy is still unidentified, and nobody has reported him missing. We’ve asked the Migration Board to check the asylum seekers’ centers and every single school, but he is as yet unidentified. Nobody has been reported missing either. Our next step is to use Interpol.”
Anneli nodded slowly as she started speaking.
“As Gunnar reported, there is at this time no similarity between these three murders. The cause and means of death differ among all three,” she said.
“Several perpetrators, you mean?” Henrik clarified.
“Yes.”
“If it is the boy who killed Hans Juhlén, we still have at least one if not two other perpetrators out there. And the clock is ticking,” said Gunnar.
Jana swallowed and looked down at the table.
“But the question is whether the murder of Hans Juhlén is connected with the blackmail letters and with the information we gathered from Yusef Abrham,” said Gunnar. “What connection could there be between Yusef and the boy we are calling Thanatos because of his carvings?”
“Are you suggesting that the boy could have carried out the murder on the orders of Yusef?” said Henrik.
“It’s just a theory. But the boy and the victim Thomas Rydberg could be part of a drug ring. The drug angle is a weak link, I know that, but it’s still a link.”
“And we did find narcotics at the docks. Five bags of a white powder on a shelf under a storage cupboard,” said Anneli. “One could well imagine that it’s all connected to some drug dealings.”
“Heroin?” said Ola.
“We assume. We’ve sent the bags for analysis,” said Gunnar.
“The boy was doped with heroin,” said Ola.
“But where does Hans Juhlén fit into all this? Was he also selling drugs?” said Anneli.
A murmur could be heard from the team.
“Right, then,” Gunnar cut in. “I know it has been long hard days for most of you, and there’s still a lot to be done. I’ve worked with you for several years and I know what you can achieve. I want you to find any possible links between these victims. For instance, between Hans Juhlén and Thomas Rydberg. Were they born in the same town? Did they go to the same school? Cross check their relatives, friends, everything.”