Bad Blood: A Crime Novel Read online

  It was a pretty substantial door key. Its lock must be more massive than you would find on a regular door, a safety lock of some sort; but it was hardly possible to say more than that. The key said “CEA” and “Made in Italy” and could have been made in any shoe repair shop anywhere.

  But did shoe repair shops really manufacture such large safety keys?

  Somewhere in the back of his head, a diligent brain cell went on the loose. Hadn’t he, at some point during this case, run into this very thing, just in passing, something that flickered in the corner of his eye? On one of the dunce jobs, perhaps? Yes, sure as hell, at the very beginning of the case, he had been in charge of all the idiotic reports of “crimes committed by Americans in Sweden.” One American had exposed himself and got beaten up by the women’s soccer team, another had copied thousand-kronor notes in Xerox machines—and another had copied a forbidden key at a shoe repair shop. Could that incident be connected with this key?

  Norlander turned to the computer with an intensity that made Söderstedt look up in surprise. He dug into his archive, feeling like a hacker. He found the case, with a reference to the fraud squad of the Stockholm police. Why the fraud squad? After enough hard work to put an end to any hacker aspirations he harbored, he came to a minuscule document from the uniformed police. There it was. It had been the fourth of September. A little shoe repair shop on Rindögatan in Gärdet. The owner, Christo Kavafis, had copied an illegal key from a Plasticine original, was seized with remorse, and was then stupid enough to report the whole thing to the police. He was arrested, but the case was dropped for lack of priority.

  Norlander didn’t have all the threads clear in his mind, but it was time for action. He grabbed his leather jacket and rushed out into the corridor. As he passed Gunnar Nyberg’s door, another stubborn brain cell in the back of his head started to dance. He stopped. That computer company—what was it called? And the key—weren’t they connected? He approached the door and took it right to the head.

  Nyberg came out and stared at the crouching, swearing Norlander.

  “Just the man I was hoping to run into,” said Nyberg, perhaps unaware of the double meaning of this expression. “Didn’t your John Doe have a key on him? I wonder if we should test it out down at LinkCoop’s warehouse. Something about that break-in still seems mysterious.”

  Norlander forgot his pain in a flash and held the key up to Nyberg’s face, as though he were trying to hypnotize him. Nyberg let himself be hypnotized.

  “I’ll drive,” said Norlander.

  Nyberg followed him willingly. The two stout men half-jogged through the corridors, and the local seismograph registered an unexpectedly high reading on the Richter scale.

  They reached the basement and drove out in Norlander’s service Volvo, which he had been refusing to return for four years, and set out for Frihamnen.

  That was the planned destination, anyway. But they got stuck in traffic as soon as they got down onto Scheelegatan. It was the middle of rush hour, and it seemed to get worse every day. Shouldn’t the sky-high unemployment levels mean that fewer people had reason to come to the city at five-thirty, the time when they gave up?

  “Let’s stop and eat,” said Nyberg.

  “Weren’t you on a diet?” said Norlander.

  “Yes. Past tense,” said Nyberg.

  Norlander parked in a highly illegal spot on Kungsbroplan. They ran through cascades of rain into the closest restaurant. It was called the Andalusian Dog and was so pleasant that they nearly forgot their urgent business. Norlander dug in to some Mexican fucking sludge. Nyberg gulped down four baked potatoes with skagenröra.

  “You could diversify a little, you know,” said Norlander.

  “It’s skinny food,” Nyberg said, with half of his fourth portion in his jaws.

  By six-thirty they were full, and the traffic had become a bit lighter.

  “Damn it, he’s probably closed by now,” Norlander exclaimed, standing.

  “Who?” said Nyberg.

  “The shoe repair. On Rindögatan.”

  “We’ll take our chances and drive by. It’s on the way, after all.”

  They took their chances and drove by. Kungsgatan to Stureplan, Sturegatan to Valhallavägen, Erik Dahlbergsgatan to Rindögatan.

  “Lidingövägen would have been better,” said Nyberg.

  “Lay off,” said Norlander. “But umbrellas would have been good.”

  It was pitch black, as if it were the middle of the night; actually it was only quarter to seven. The shoe repair shop was a short way up the long hill of Rindögatan. There was a faint light coming from the little workshop. They hurried out into the pouring rain and pounded on the window, where old soles and keys from the 1960s were lying and collecting dust.

  A small Greek man in his sixties peeked discreetly out the window. He gaped in fear at the dripping, pounding Nordic giants. Polyphemus, he appeared to be thinking. Two of them.

  “Police,” Norlander mimed, showing his ID. “Can we come in for a minute?”

  The Greek opened the door and, with a small gesture, let the cop-Cyclopes in. On the ancient worktable lay an open book under a small, weak shoemaker’s lamp. The man walked over to it and held it up. It was in Greek.

  “Have you heard of Konstantin Kavafis?” he asked.

  They stared at him like idiots.

  “Never has the modern Greek language sounded so sweet,” he said, stroking the cover of the book. “He lifted us up to the level of the ancients. I always sit here for a while after closing time and read him. A poem a day keeps senility away. He was my grandfather’s uncle.”

  “So you’re Christo Kavafis?” Norlander said briskly.

  “That’s right,” said Kavafis. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “A few weeks ago you copied a key from a Plasticine original, right?”

  Kavafis turned pale. “I thought I was free.” He felt the threat of grievous bodily harm nibble at the back of his neck. My name is No One, he seemed to be thinking.

  “Yeah, yeah, you are free, don’t worry. Tell us about it.”

  “I have already told about it.”

  “Do it again.”

  “A young man who spoke English with an American accent came in and asked to get a key made from a clay impression. I knew it wasn’t legal, but it was such a challenge. I don’t come across that many challenges in my work, so I couldn’t resist. Then I regretted it and called the police, and they came and arrested me. I was in jail for the night. I haven’t been that scared since the civil war. All my memories came back.”

  “What did he look like? The American?”

  Kavafis shook his head. “It was a long time ago. Ordinary. Normal. Young. Pretty blond.”

  “Clothes?”

  “I don’t remember. Gray jacket, I think. Tennis shoes. I don’t know.”

  Norlander took out the key and held it up to Kavafis, who was not hypnotized.

  “Is this the key?”

  The Greek took it and turned it over. “This might be it. It was one like this.”

  “Can you come up to see us tomorrow and help us try to get a picture of him? It’s very important.”

  Kavafis nodded.

  Norlander fished out his wallet and took out a dirty business card, which he gave to the Greek. Then they said goodbye.

  Kavafis looked hesitant. “I wonder,” he said, “if I don’t remember one more thing. He paid in ten-kronor coins. Out of a long roll.”

  Nyberg and Norlander exchanged glances. They had been right. John Doe was an American. He had made a clay impression of a security lock. He had gone to a shoe repair shop in Gärdet to get a key made. Then he had been shot in the heart. Why? Where? In the rush to get going, they couldn’t really get all the threads to come together, but they had to get to Frihamnen; they knew that much.

  It was almost seven-thirty when they reached the sentry box outside of LinkCoop’s warehouses. It was pitch black, the heavens were wide open, and they had no umbrel
las. They had at least thirty-four doors to test. They didn’t hesitate.

  Tonight it wasn’t Benny Lundberg sitting in the sentry box but another of the guards. Nyberg went over and waved his police ID in the air.

  “We need to take a look at the premises in connection with the break-in,” he said to the cracked window hatch. “Isn’t Benny working?”

  “He’s on vacation,” said the guard.

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “A few days. Since the break-in.”

  “Strange time for a vacation.” Nyberg felt a twinge of suspicion.

  “I know,” said the guard. He could have been mistaken for Benny Lundberg. The stench of steroids trumped the perpetual ozone scent of the storm. “He took a vacation in August, so it is a little odd. He traveled somewhere. Out of the country, I think. Was it the Canary Islands?”

  Nyberg nodded.

  Norlander came jogging up after having parked the car around the corner. They entered the grounds and walked to the door where the break-in had taken place. Thick planks were nailed up across the door as a temporary repair job. Nyberg heaved himself up onto the loading dock and inserted the key. It went in. But it didn’t turn in the lock.

  “Right kind, anyway,” he said. “I guess we should start from the left.”

  They followed the loading dock past the series of doors up to the far end of the large warehouse. There were about as many doors to the left of the entrance as there were to the right. There ought to be more on the back of the building as well. Mayer, the chief of security, had talked about thirty-four units; after testing ten doors it felt like considerably more. They were soaking wet. The torrents of rain were splendidly combined with loathsome gusts of wind. Two cases of pneumonia sailed through the air, searching for their rightful owners.

  The key fit in all the locks but was never the right one. They reached the entry and began to work their way through the other half. It felt more and more hopeless. A fool’s errand. And a voluntary one, at that. They were doing overtime that they didn’t know if they dared to put in for. Couldn’t they have waited until tomorrow?

  They approached the end of the row. By the time they came to the last door, they were resigned.

  “What do you think?” Nyberg held the key a few inches from the lock.

  “Aren’t there any doors on the other side?”

  “That remains to be seen,” said Nyberg, who inserted the key. He turned it. It was the right one. “Haha.” Laughing, he pulled the door open a few inches.

  Then he got it in the face. It was violently kicked open, straight into his nose. He tumbled over. A black-clad figure in a balaclava jumped over him and raced along the dock in the pouring rain. Norlander drew his pistol and set off after him. Nyberg got up, his hand to his face. He roared. He felt the blood welling between his fingers. He was about to throw himself after them when he turned to the storage unit.

  Looking down a set of stairs, he saw Benny Lundberg, the guard. He was naked and tied to a chair. Blood was streaming from his shredded fingertips. A needle was threaded through his genitals. And out of his neck stuck two gently quivering syringes.

  Gunnar Nyberg stiffened. His own pain vanished immediately. He took his hand from his face and let the blood flow out of his nose. He went down the stairs. He was trembling. A small, bare lightbulb radiated a ghastly glow over the macabre scene.

  Benny Lundberg was alive. His eyes had rolled back; only the whites were visible. Spasmodic jerks passed through his face. Convulsions were ripping through the pumped-up body. White foam bubbled out of his mouth. No hint of sound.

  Gunnar Nyberg was looking at pain beyond words.

  His large body shook. What could he do? He didn’t dare touch the horrible pincers in Lundberg’s neck. Any movement could have disastrous consequences. He didn’t even dare to unfasten the leather straps around his arms and legs. What would happen if Lundberg convulsed and fell to the floor? The only thing he could do in the way of a small attempt at care was to pull the long needle out of his male organ. He did so.

  Then he got his cell phone out of his inside pocket, and, with concentration, managed to dial the number. He didn’t recognize his own voice as it asked for an ambulance. “A doctor has to come too,” it said. “A neck specialist.”

  Then he bent toward Lundberg. He placed his hand on the shaking cheek. He tried to speak comfortingly to him. He embraced him. He tried to be as brotherly as he could.

  “There, there, Benny, take it easy. Help is on the way. You can do it. Hang in there, Benny. There. Everything is okay. Nice and easy.”

  The spasms and twitches began to subside. Benny Lundberg grew calmer—or was he about to die in his arms?

  Gunnar Nyberg realized he was crying.

  Norlander ran after the man in black. He was in good shape these days, and he was gradually gaining on the man. But the man was quick and lithe. He threw himself down from the loading dock and kept running, past the sentry box. Just as Norlander ran by, the guard peered out. “Call the police!” he bellowed as he ran.

  The man in black dashed onto a cross street and vanished from sight for an instant. Norlander approached the spot. He saw the man disappear behind a building about ten yards away. Without thinking, he ran that way. His weapon was dangling from his hand. The man in the balaclava peeked out and shot at him.

  Norlander threw himself forward into the mud. He checked himself out for a second, then was up again. His pistol was muddy. He tried to wipe it off as he ran. He raced up to the corner and carefully peered around it. It was empty back there, an alley. Crouching, he ran to the next corner and peered around it. Empty again. Up to the next corner. Peer around it carefully.

  One step was all he heard behind him, a faint splash. Then an incredible pain on the back of his neck. He fell into the mud like a pig. He was nearly unconscious. He looked up into the rain clouds. Everything was dancing. The man in black was staring down at him through his balaclava. He couldn’t make out his eyes. The only thing he could see was the silencer on the barrel of the pistol that was pointed at his face.

  “Get out of here,” the man hissed. “Beat it.”

  Then he was gone. Norlander heard a motor start up. He stood and peered around the corner of the building. He was dazed. The world was spinning. Very, very vaguely he could see the contours of a car in the middle of the centrifuge. Maybe brown, maybe a jeep.

  Then he fell down into the sludge.

  26

  The sun in New York had become as insane as the rain was in Stockholm. Time was out of joint. All that was missing was for horses with two heads and jackdaws with beaks sticking out of their asses to be born.

  It was excessively hot. Not even the FBI’s hypermodern air conditioning could combat it. Hjelm could have testified that Eenie meenie miney moe didn’t work either. He was bored; he felt as if he had been stopped midstep.

  They waited. Waiting never promotes tolerance for irritation. Everyone was irritating everyone else. Even Jerry Schonbauer had a fit and tore off his soaking wet shirt, causing his buttons to fly off. When one of the buttons knocked the contact lens out of Holm’s left eye, he resumed his timid self and begged for forgiveness.

  “I didn’t know you wore lenses,” Hjelm said after a while.

  “ ‘Wore’ is right.” She examined the two pieces of the contact, which were stuck to her thumb and index finger respectively. “Now you’ll get to see me in glasses.”

  She took out her right contact and threw it away. Then she dug out a pair of classic round glasses and secured them on her exquisite nose. To avoid bursting into confidence-shattering peals of laughter, he concentrated on being irritated with the heat.

  It didn’t work. He burst into laughter.

  “Look at that funny bird,” he said unconvincingly, pointing out the window.

  “I’m glad I can be of service,” she said sulkily, pushing the glasses up toward her forehead.

  They had been to visit the young computer expert
Bernhard Andrews, who hacked his way into every branch of the Internet on the hunt for Lamar Jennings. Maybe he would find a photo. But as expected, he was nowhere. Not one single tiny directory could produce anything at all on Jennings; he had kept himself out of the monitoring systems of society for twenty-five years. The only thing that turned up was his birth certificate. It seemed that he hadn’t existed since his birth.

  Mrs. Wilma Stewart had failed miserably to create a portrait of Lamar Jennings. As the image took shape on the computer screen, the old woman had shaken her head time after time. “Thicker lips.… Thinner lips, I said, young man.… Listen here. I said thicker lips.”

  The heat claimed another victim. She nodded off in front of the computer and promised to come back later and try again.

  Finally the crime techs dropped off the first of the materials they had finished processing from Lamar Jennings’s apartment. They had attempted to reconstruct the pages of Lamar Jennings’s diary from the remains they had found and made four copies. Each of the four took one and began reading. Schonbauer sat on Larner’s desk, dangling his legs, clad in a ridiculous net undershirt that had been revealed after the shirt catastrophe. Larner sat in his chair with his legs on the desk beside Schonbauer. Yalm & Halm sat in visitors’ chairs at a respectable distance from each other.

  The fragments were incoherent, like key words out of a life story. Apparently Larner had been right in saying that Lamar Jennings had left just enough to indicate the depths of his pain. Each fragment bore a small amount of information.

  “don’t know why i’m writing, pleading? am i trying to stop myself before i have time”

  “a grave in the great perfection of futility”

  “the old neighbor woman wanted to have me for tea, said no, thanks, would have vomited on her, gotten permission to”

  “they are so small, they don’t want to understand how”

  “stronger and stronger. Why do they get stronger and st”

  “in the middle of the night, shadow in the closet, it’s stuck, invisible hinges”

  “reduced to nothing, less than zero, there is a life under zero”