Gunnar wrote Links on the whiteboard.
“We must investigate all the known heroin addicts in town. Ask all the contacts we know of. Get at every dealer, big or petty, every snitch, addict.”
He wrote HEROIN on the board.
“Ola, here’s the number of Thomas Rydberg’s cell phone.”
Gunnar pushed across a piece of paper toward Ola.
“Make sure I get a list of all the incoming and outgoing calls. Check if he had a computer, if he did, get it and examine it.”
Next, Gunnar wrote Call logs on the whiteboard and underlined the words. Jana froze. She thought about the cell she had at home. “Did you find anything at the crime scene?” Jana said briskly.
“No, nothing besides the heroin,” Anneli answered.
“Nothing else?”
“No, no tracks, no prints.”
“Security cameras?”
“No, there wasn’t any.”
Jana sighed with relief internally.
“The narcotics unit should be able to analyze the heroin and trace it back to whoever is selling it. Henrik, will you follow up on this?” said Gunnar.
“Yes, sure,” said Henrik.
“Fine.”
The meeting lasted thirty minutes. When it was over, Jana pulled out her diary and thumbed through it to give the team time to leave the conference room before she did. When they had all left, she went up to the whiteboard and stopped in front of the photos of the victims. She studied each of them in detail. Her gaze fastened on the boy. His throat was blue. A mark of extreme violence.
She found herself instinctively putting her hand on her own throat. It was as if she could feel a hard pressure there...as if there was something familiar about it.
“Did you find something?”
She gave a start on hearing Ola S?derstr?m’s voice.
He came in through the open door and went up to the table.
“I forgot my notes,” he said and stretched after a pile of papers that still lay in the middle of the table. Then he came and stood beside her.
“Feels a bit panicky all of a sudden.”
He pointed toward the photographs. “That we still have little to go on, I mean. Feels a bit desperate, this narcotics angle.”
Jana nodded.
Ola looked down at his notes.
“And these letters and numbers,” he said. “I just can’t get my head round these!”
Jana didn’t answer. She just swallowed.
“Have you any thoughts about what they could mean?”
He held up the notes with the combinations in front of her.
She glanced at them, screwed her eyes and pretended to be thinking.
“No,” she lied.
“But they do mean something,” said Ola.
“Yes, I agree.”
“They must have a purpose.”
“Yes.”
“But I can’t figure it out.”
“No.”
“Or I’m interpreting them wrongly.”
“Perhaps.”
“Frustrating.”
“Yes, I realize it is.”
Jana went to the table, picked up her briefcase and her diary and took a couple of steps toward the door.
“Better to be a prosecutor, right?” Ola said. “And avoid this sort of riddle?”
“Be seeing you,” she said, as she left the room.
In the corridor she broke into a half run. She wanted to get away from the police building as quickly as possible. It was extremely uncomfortable lying to Ola. But it was necessary.
Jana took the elevator down to the garage and walked quickly across the concrete floor to her car. Her telephone started ringing just as she sat down behind the wheel. When she saw her parents’ home number, she felt like ignoring the call. But at the sixth ring she lifted the phone to her ear.
“Jana,” she answered.
“Jana, how are things with you?”
Margaretha Berzelius’s voice sounded a bit uneasy.
“Just fine, Mother.”
She started the car.
“Are you coming for dinner next week?”
“Yes.”
“It’s at seven.”
“I know.”
She looked in the side mirrors and started reversing out of the parking space.
“I’m making a roast.”
“Lovely.”
“Your father likes it.”
“Yes.”
“He wants to talk to you.”
Jana was surprised. That was unusual. She stopped the car and heard her father clearing his throat at the other end of the phone.
“Any progress?” he said. His voice was deep, dark.
“It’s a comprehensive investigation,” said Jana.
He remained silent on his end.
She didn’t say anything either. Her eyes were wide with anxiety. Something about this case seemed to have caught his attention.
“Well then,” he finally said.
“Well then,” she repeated slowly.
She ended the conversation, pressed the phone to her chin and thought about what he might have wanted to say. That she wasn’t doing a proper job? That she wasn’t clever enough? That she would fail?
She sighed and put the phone down on the passenger seat. She didn’t see the little wine-red car coming into the garage and pulling behind her until suddenly she heard the screech of tires and a long beep of a car horn. She pressed the button on the car door to lower the window, looked behind her and saw Mia Bolander behind the wheel of her Fiat.
Mia rolled down her window furiously.
“Can’t you see anything when you’re in a car like that?” she hissed.
“Oh yes, the vision is good,” said Jana.
“But didn’t you see me?”
“Yes,” Jana lied and smiled to herself.
Mia’s face turned darker.
“A pity you didn’t back out quicker—you could have crashed into me.”
Jana didn’t answer.
“Quite a fancy car you got there. Comes with the job, does it?”
“No. It’s my personal one.”
“You must earn plenty?”
“I earn the same as other prosecutors.”
“Evidently pretty good.”
“The car says nothing about my salary. It might have been a gift.”
Mia Bolander laughed out loud.
“Oh yeah, right!”
“By the way,” said Jana. “You’re too late, the meeting is already over.”
Mia clenched her teeth, swore out loud, then pressed the accelerator hard and shot off with her tires screeching.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
THE MAN WAS lying there asleep when they climbed in through the window. Hades first, then the girl after him. They moved nimbly and silently. Like shadows. As they had been taught to do. They crept up on either side of the wide bed. At first listening for sounds, but the silence of the night was evident.
The girl carefully loosened the knife that was fastened to her back and held it in a firm grip. Not shaking. Not hesitating. She looked at Hades. His pupils had dilated, his nostrils too. He was ready. And at the agreed signal the girl took a quick step forward, climbed up onto the bed and cut perfectly across the man’s throat. The man gave a start, he made a noise, was choking, struggling for breath.
Hades stood still, studying the jerky movements. He let the man feel mortal dread and panic a moment. The man opened his mouth as if screaming, his eyes wide open. He stretched out one hand in a desperate attempt to get help.
But Hades just smirked. Then he raised his gun and peppered the man with all the bullets in the magazine. He shouldn’t have done that. That wasn’t the order. He should just keep guard. Protect her. But he shot anyway.
The girl looked at the man who lay lifeless between them. A bloodstain gradually spread across the white sheet. From the slash in his throat, the holes in his chest, stomach and brow.
Hades was breathing heavily, a dark look in his eyes.
The girl knew that what he had done was wrong, he had broken the rules, but still she smiled at him. Because it felt good. When they stood there in the half-dark bedroom and looked at each other they were both filled with a euphoric feeling of being part of something bigger. Now they were the tools that they had so long been trained to be.
At last.
Together they climbed out through the window and made their way back to the van. The woman was waiting for them there. Her face still showed nothing. Showed no pride at all. Instead she herded them brutally into the empty back of the van and the girl immediately sank down on the floor. Hades sat down too. He sat directly opposite her, with long outstretched legs, and his gaze fixed on the ceiling.