‘My face, probably,’ Rex suggests. ‘It just looks like this, there’s no point trying to change it.’
She doesn’t smile, just lowers her gaze for a moment, then looks up at him again.
‘When did you last see the Foreign Minister?’
‘I don’t remember. We met for coffee a few weeks ago,’ he lies, running his hand nervously through his hair.
The look in her pale eyes is serious, thoughtful.
‘Have you spoken to his wife?’
‘No. I don’t really know her, we’ve only met a couple of times.’
He can’t think about anything but the blood. It feels like everything he says is empty and false.
She takes her hands off the chair and walks around the table without taking her eyes off him.
‘What are you hiding from me?’
‘I need to keep a few secrets so you have to come back.’
‘You don’t want me to come back, believe me.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I’ll shoot you in the kneecap,’ she says, but can’t help smiling at his stupid grin.
‘Shall we go and sit in the orangery?’ he suggests with a vague gesture. ‘It’s a bit cooler there …’
She follows him to the covered part of the roof terrace and sits down on one of the fluffy sheepskin armchairs around the old marble table.
Rex tries to think of a reason to go back inside, so he can wipe the chair with bleach and get rid of the evidence before she has time to react.
‘Can I get you a glass of water?’ he suggests.
‘I won’t be long,’ she says, stroking the leaves of a large pot of lemon balm with one hand.
‘Champagne?’
She smiles wearily and he notices the scar running across her eyebrow. Somehow it only makes her seem more alive.
‘Did the Foreign Minister ever mention feeling threatened?’ she asks.
‘Threatened? No … I don’t think so,’ he replies, and feels his skin crawl as it dawns on him that the Foreign Minister was murdered.
Why else would the Security Police be involved?
The Foreign Minister wasn’t sick, that’s just what the public is being told.
Rex feels sweat break out on his top lip when he thinks back to what he said just now about the Foreign Minister not wanting to talk about his illness. He implied that he knew about it but didn’t understand how serious it was.
‘Well, I must be going,’ she says, and gets to her feet.
He goes back into the kitchen with her. She stops by the table and turns to look at him.
‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ she asks seriously.
‘No, just what I already said, really … that sometimes we went a bit too far with our jokes.’
Instead of leaving, the agent pulls the chair away from the table, sits down and looks up at him with an expression that tells him she’s expecting to hear the truth now.
‘But you did occasionally go and see him out in Djursholm?’
‘No,’ he whispers, looking at the kitchen cupboard where the bleach is kept.
If the Foreign Minister really was murdered, then his little prank won’t just be seen as a scandalous act, it will make him a suspect.
Rex can feel himself starting to panic, and wonders if he ought to admit what he really thought about the Foreign Minister, then swear that he could never hurt anyone.
He’s never done anything violent, but realises that his attempt to help DJ the previous evening could also have serious consequences.
There hasn’t been anything about an assault or murder in the local news, but there was a lot of blood, and DJ was convinced that the man was seriously hurt.
Maybe he’s still on the operating table? If he dies, Rex could be charged as an accessory to murder, or at least go down for harbouring a felon.
If the police officer moves her hand just a fraction further forward, she’ll feel the congealed blood.
‘When was the last time you were in Djursholm?’
Rex stares at her hand.
‘I’d love to talk about old memories, but I need to get going … I’m changing the menu at the restaurant, and …’
She drums her fingers on both armrests, then leans back and looks at him intently. Her fingers are right next to the blood.
‘Did he ever mention a man with a double face?’
‘No,’ he replies quickly.
‘Shouldn’t you be wondering what I mean?’ she asks. ‘If you didn’t know what I was referring to?’
‘I suppose so, but …’
Her index finger idly nudges one of the sticky drops of blood.
‘But what?’
Rex comes close to running his hand through his hair again, but manages to stop himself.
‘I really am in a bit of a hurry and … well, to be honest, I don’t really see how I can help you.’
‘Don’t be surprised if I come back,’ she says, and stands up.
She walks around the chair, slowly tucks it back under the table and looks him in the eye for a few moments before heading towards the stairs.
40
Joona parks beside a battered white trailer at 16 Almn?sv?gen out in Bandhagen. He looks at the time and thinks about his interview with Sofia Stefansson again.
They’re dealing with a killer who is acting outside the frame of his remit, in spite of his exceptional military training.
He takes meticulous care not to leave any evidence, but he still leaves a witness.
He’s incredibly fast and efficient, yet he lets ten minutes pass without doing anything. He’s perfectly calm, shows no sign of nerves, he doesn’t pray, doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t make any demands.
That empty period of time must be somehow important to him, it must be a ritual on some level, Joona thinks.
But if that’s true, then the motives behind the murder are far more complex than they’ve assumed. It means that this can’t be as simple as a conventional terrorist act.
The door to the trailer opens and a woman in a green raincoat comes out, pulling the hood up over her blonde hair. Joona gets out of the car and goes over to her.
‘Joona Linna,’ she says.
‘That’s my name too,’ he replies, holding out his hand.
She wipes the smile off her face.
‘My name is Ingrid Holm. I’ll take you to the boss.’
‘Thanks.’
Ingrid leads him through a gate in an unpainted fence between the house and garage, and into a patch of woodland. The air smells like heather and warm moss. As the wind blows through the treetops dry pine needles fall to the ground.
‘You need to follow my footsteps exactly so you won’t be seen from the road,’ she says, stopping him at the brow of the hill.
Ingrid calls someone on her radio, listens, then waits for a few seconds. She tells Joona to crouch down, then leads him past two pine trees and behind a large rock covered in white moss before indicating that it’s OK to stand up again. They change direction, and walk along a well-worn path past some tall lilacs and out across a lawn behind a yellow wooden house with white windows and eaves. An old red barbecue and a small trampoline are marooned in the tall weeds next to an old apple tree.
Ingrid leads Joona to the white veranda door. There are police officers in bulletproof vests standing in the hall, kitchen and living room. There’s an anxious smell like sweat and gun-grease. Semiautomatic rifles swing from leather straps, black helmets litter the floor. All the downstairs windows have been screened to conceal the activity inside the house.
‘The first group are in the kitchen,’ she says, gesturing beyond the staircase.
Joona pushes past a group of black-clad men waiting restlessly at the bottom of the stairs.
None of them know that several of them will be dead within a few hours.
The members of Operational Unit 1 are squeezed into the little kitchen. This is Gustav’s team, the ones who will be first in behind Joona, forcing their way through the doors and windows if a hostile situation arises.
‘Joona?’ a man with dark-brown eyes asks.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Joona Linna, he’s going to be the first man in,’ the man explains to the others.
‘And we’re the ones who are going to rescue you,’ a man with a shaved head and thick neck says.
‘I feel safer already.’ Joona smiles, and shakes hands with the four men, who introduce themselves in turn: Adam, August, Jamal, and Sonny.