Bad Blood: A Crime Novel Read online

  “This is an insane serial killer with many lives on his conscience. And he’s shot people before. Why didn’t he kill you?”

  “Thanks for your support at this difficult time,” Norlander said, and conked out.

  Hultin got up and went over to the other bed in the hospital room.

  In it was yet another once-again-defeated hero. Both of his bundles of muscle had been flattened by the same man; that didn’t feel so great.

  Gunnar Nyberg’s bandage was more extensive. His nasal bones were cracked in three places; he found it incredible that such small bones could be cracked in so many places. But his soul hurt much worse. He knew that no matter how hard he tried, he would never get that horrible image of Benny Lundberg out of his mind. He would probably die with it before his eyes.

  “How’s he doing?” he asked.

  Hultin sat in the visitor’s chair with a little groan. “Viggo? He’s recovering.”

  “Not Viggo. Benny Lundberg.”

  “Aha. Well, the latest news isn’t good. He’s alive, and he’ll survive. But his vocal cords are seriously injured, and the nerve paths in his neck are one big mess. He’s on a respirator. Worst of all, he’s in a state of extreme shock. The perpetrator literally terrified him out of his wits. He pushed him over the line of sanity, and the question is whether there’s any way back.”

  Hultin placed an incongruous bunch of grapes on Nyberg’s table. “Your clear-headedness saved his life,” he said. “You should know that. If you’d tried to pull out the pincers, he almost certainly would have died right away. That neck doctor you got there struggled for over an hour. He had to operate at the scene. It was good that it was you and not Viggo who went in; I guess I can say that now that he’s out.”

  Hultin looked into Nyberg’s eyes. Something had changed. “Are you okay, by the way?” he said quietly.

  “No, I’m not okay,” said Gunnar Nyberg. “I’m furious. I’m going to put a stop to this guy if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Hultin was of two minds about that. Certainly, it was excellent that Nyberg was coming out of his recent apathy toward work and his longing for retirement; but a furious Nyberg was like a runaway steam engine.

  “Come back as soon as you can,” Hultin said. “We need you.”

  “I’d be back already if it weren’t for this damn concussion.”

  “That’s something we’ve got plenty of right now,” Hultin said neutrally.

  They had been mistaken, thought Nyberg. It wasn’t two cases of pneumonia that had sailed through the air to find their rightful owners, it was two concussions.

  “If we hadn’t stopped to eat, we could have saved him,” he said bitterly.

  Hultin looked at him for a moment, then said goodbye, and stepped into the corridor. Before he stepped out into the evening’s downpour, he opened an umbrella with police logos, which kept the deluge in check until he reached his turbo Volvo, the only privilege of his rank that he accepted.

  He drove through the pitch-black city, up St. Eriksgatan, then Fleminggatan and Polhemsgatan, but at this moment he was an unfit driver. Mixing facts with intuitions as he was, he was a grave danger in traffic; fortunately, though, the nighttime traffic was nonexistent. Why Benny Lundberg? What had the security guard seen or done that night? After all, Hultin had been there and talked to him that same night, and everything had seemed normal. And yet there must have been something strange about that break-in. Immediately afterward Lundberg had taken vacation time and was later discovered half-murdered by the Kentucky Killer, who had spoken Swedish, flattened two solid, professional policemen, and refrained from killing Norlander even though he’d had him in his sights. If they hadn’t had the background information on the killer, Hultin would have immediately thought: inside job, a criminal cop.

  He went into the dark police building. Everything was still. The rain’s uninterrupted rumble had been absorbed into the normal background noise; when the rain stopped sometime in the future, something would feel wrong, like a disturbance in the normal state of things.

  He arrived in the A-Unit’s corridor. A little light was shining—he realized where from. Chavez hopped out from his office and rushed up to his boss.

  “Come take a look at this shit,” he said, as hyper as a seven-year-old.

  Jan-Olov Hultin wanted to think, not look at shit. He had been doing quite enough of that during the past few weeks. He felt like a grumpy old man—which, it struck him, he was. He followed Chavez without protest.

  In Hjelm’s place at the desk sat a small older man with Mediterranean looks. His face was illuminated by the large computer monitor in front of him.

  “This is Christo Kavafis,” said Chavez, “the locksmith. I took the liberty of bringing him in. Christo, this is Jan-Olov Hultin, my boss.”

  “My pleasure,” said Christo Kavafis.

  Hultin nodded and looked with surprise at Chavez, who hurried over to the Greek man.

  “I was struck by a flash of genius when I heard that John Doe’s key allowed admittance to the site of the murder,” Chavez said eagerly. “Everything seems to indicate that the American who got into Sweden under the name Edwin Reynolds looks—like this.” He turned the computer monitor a quarter of the way around.

  Hultin stared into the face of the Kentucky Killer. It was John Doe, their unidentified body.

  He was silent for a minute. The pieces were starting to fall into place. “So there are two Kentucky Killers,” he said.

  “Now there’s just one,” said Chavez.

  Hultin picked up his cell phone and dialed Hjelm’s number in the United States. It was busy. Very strange—the number was to be used solely for this purpose.

  Kerstin and Paul approached the computer monitor above Wilma Stewart’s small, nodding head.

  “That’s just what he looked like,” said the old woman. “Just like that. Lamar Jennings.”

  Kerstin and Paul stared into the face of the Kentucky Killer.

  It was John Doe, their unidentified body.

  Hjelm took out his cell phone and dialed Hultin’s number in Sweden. It was busy. Very strange—the number was to be used solely for this purpose.

  Hultin didn’t give up. He called again. This time he got through.

  “Hjelm,” Hjelm answered on the other side of the Atlantic.

  “John Doe is the Kentucky Killer,” Hultin said abruptly.

  “One of them,” said Hjelm.

  “I’m looking at composite of him right now.”

  “Me too.”

  Hultin gave a start. “I just tried to call.”

  “Me too.”

  Hjelm had difficulty getting everything straightened out. Hultin kept talking instead of explaining.

  “Norlander and Nyberg almost got him. The second one. He speaks Swedish.”

  “He’s lived in Sweden since 1983. How close did they get?”

  “Close enough to take a licking, both of them. In LinkCoop’s warehouse. He had Viggo in his sights but didn’t kill him. Is he a police officer?”

  “Sort of. We’ll talk about that later. So he’s free?”

  “Yes, but just by a hair. We have the pincers. And a half-dead guard.”

  “Benny Lundberg?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, he’s probably going to be a vegetable. Can you explain all this?”

  “There are two killers, Jennings father and son. The son went to Sweden to kill the father. Their roles were reversed.”

  “So it was Wayne Jennings … that means he’s alive?”

  “He’s been living in Sweden for fifteen years. It’s his son Lamar who’s dead; we know that now. That explains why he shot John Doe without torturing him. Presumably Lamar was waiting in ambush and saw his father Wayne torturing Eric Lindberger. It turned into a horrific déjà vu. The son discovered the father and got shot. It’s likely that Wayne Jennings doesn’t even know it was his son he shot.”

  “So Wayne was the one who was surprised by the bandy-playing lawyers.”
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  “Yes. There are two different perpetrators for the Swedish victims. Hassel and Gallano were chosen at random, one for his plane ticket and the other for the cabin. John Doe was their murderer—Lamar Jennings. Lamar was murdered in turn by Wayne, also randomly. What we have left is Lindberger. His death is not random; Wayne doesn’t kill at random—he’s a professional.”

  “Professional killer and ‘sort of’ a police officer? Your insinuations reek of …”

  “Don’t say it. But it’s right.”

  “Okay. I need everyone at full capacity now. It sounds like you’re starting to wrap it up. Can you two come home?”

  “Now?”

  “If possible.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say hi to Larner, and thank him.”

  “Absolutely. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Hjelm hung up and stared at the telephone. The unit had been close to getting Wayne Jennings. Norlander and Nyberg, of all people.

  “Did you hear?” he said to Holm who was leaning over him.

  “Yes,” she said. “He goes to Sweden to avenge a ‘life under zero,’ as he wrote, once and for all. He prepares extremely carefully, locates his father, follows him, and waits for the right moment to strike. Then he wavers somehow—and he’s killed immediately. A second time. By his father. Who doesn’t even know it. There’s some horrible irony here.”

  “Don’t think about it too much. We’re going home. Now. To get him.”

  She nodded.

  They went to see Larner and explained the situation.

  “So he threatened him?” His tone was measured. “He had your colleague in his sights but refrained from shooting him. A professional through and through, you have to admit.”

  “Yes,” said Hjelm. “But we’re going to get him.”

  “I’m actually starting to believe you will. You came sweeping in here like cousins from the boonies and solved the case in a few days. I’m feeling really old and rusty. But you lifted a burden from my shoulders.”

  “It was pure chance,” said Hjelm. “And you were the one who solved the case—don’t think otherwise. Your stubbornness got him to leave; you were the one who drove him to flee the country. That he then forgot an old truth is another matter.”

  “And what old truth is that?”

  “Bad blood always comes back around.”

  27

  The next morning, strangely enough, everyone in the A-Unit was in their place. Only two should have been present, besides Hultin: Chavez and Söderstedt. But the old, experienced comedy duo Yalm & Halm arrived straight from the airport with red eyes, and in the back sat a fresh duo: everyone’s favorite bandage-skulls, NN; it would have taken a lot to keep Norlander and Nyberg on the bench now.

  Hultin didn’t look like he’d been celebrating any triumphs of sleep, either, but his glasses were where they should be, and so was his sharp look.

  “A lot has happened,” he said. “We’re nipping at his heels. Has everyone had a chance to take a look at the summary I put together last night with the help of a little conference-calling across the Atlantic?”

  “I’ve accidentally pulled out that phone they have in the armrests a lot of times, but this was the first time I used it,” Hjelm said sleepily.

  “Have you had a chance to look through it?” Hultin repeated.

  Everyone appeared to nod, if a bit sluggishly here and there.

  “Then you know what our main task is: to find out Wayne Jennings’s Swedish name. Besides that, the questions are, one: Why has he been using a warehouse at LinkCoop to carry out his business? Apparently it was a habit; otherwise his son wouldn’t have copied the key. Two: Why did he torture Benny Lundberg, the security guard? Three: How does the failed break-in at LinkCoop relate to the murders of Eric Lindberger and Lamar Jennings, at the same time, about ten doors away? Four: Why was Eric Lindberger killed? Five: Did it have anything to do with his links to the Arab world? Six: Is Justine Lindberger at risk, too? I’m putting her under surveillance for safety’s sake. Seven: Can we find Wayne Jennings in the immigration register for 1983? Eight: The difficult and delicate question—is Wayne Jennings CIA?”

  “We could always go the official route,” said Arto Söderstedt, “and just ask the CIA.”

  “I’m afraid that if we do, we’ll guarantee that he’ll disappear one way or another.”

  “As far as I can tell from this,” Chavez said, waving Hultin’s summary papers, “he could just as easily belong to military intelligence. Or he could have been recruited by the opposing side or the Mafia or a drug syndicate or some nasty maverick organization.”

  “Agreed,” Hultin said. “It’s far too early to identify him as CIA as any sort of main theory. Anything else in general?… No? Then to details. Arto keeps working on Lindberger, Jorge on the Volvo. Viggo and Gunnar can stay in today—take on the immigrations. Paul can go down to Frihamnen and sniff around. Kerstin can take on Benny Lundberg. How’s it going with Lindberger, Arto?”

  “Eric Lindberger left behind a lot of notes, which I’ve checked out, and they contain no mysteries. But his calendar includes an extremely interesting entry: a meeting scheduled for the night before his death. His corpse was loaded into the Volvo in Frihamnen by Wayne Jennings at two-thirty in the morning on September twelfth, we know that. At ten o’clock the night before, the entry for the appointment says ‘Riche’s Bar’—unfortunately nothing more. I went down and waltzed around Riche’s yesterday afternoon, trying to find someone who had been working at the bar at ten that night. There are a lot of staff members, so it was hard, but finally I found a bartender, Luigi Engbrandt. He racked his brains to remember, but it’s a busy bar. He thinks he might remember Lindberger; if he’s right, he hung around the bar for a while, waiting for someone. Unfortunately, Luigi has no memory of anyone ever coming. I also checked Eric’s bank account. He leaves behind a decent but not exceptional fortune, six hundred thousand kronor altogether. Today I’m going to see Justine.”

  “Why Justine?” said Norlander. “Leave her alone.”

  “Discrepancies,” said Söderstedt. “The large apartment, the spouses’ collaboration, a few strange things she said when we last spoke. There are also some interesting items in her Filofax that I’d like her to comment on.”

  “Okay,” said Hultin. “Did you get any farther with the cars, Jorge?”

  “The cars.” Chavez made a face. “As you know, I’ve set a whole fucking armada of foot soldiers to work. Soon they will have gone through all the cars. Volvos seem to be owned by dependable, average middle-class Swedes as a rule. None of the ones we’ve checked so far has been stolen or was loaned out the night of the murder. Stefan Helge Larsson, the small-time criminal whose car had disappeared along with him, has returned from a month-long stay in Amsterdam. The traffic cops in Dalshammar, wherever that is, caught him, quote, ‘exceptionally under the influence of drugs’ on the E4. He was driving the wrong way down the highway. My interest is focused more and more on the car that’s registered to a nonexistent business. That’s what I’m going to work on today.”

  “I think everything else is settled,” Hultin said briskly. “Let’s go. We have to get him. Preferably yesterday, as stressed-out businessmen like to joke.”

  “What’s going on in the media?” said Kerstin Holm.

  “The witch hunt continues,” said Hultin. “Sales of locks, weapons, and German shepherds have increased considerably. Orders have been given for platters containing the heads of those responsible. Mainly mine. Mörner’s too. He’s in a full-time panic. Do you want me to call him down so he can give you a little morale-boosting speech?

  “Better than a blowtorch in your ass,” he remarked to the now-empty Supreme Central Command.

  Arto Söderstedt called Justine Lindberger right away. The widow was home. Her voice sounded surprisingly peppy.

  “Justine,” she said.

  “Söderstedt here, with the police.”

  “Oh.”

 
; “Do you think I could take a peek at your planner?”

  “My Filofax, you mean? It’s still at my office, I’m afraid. And I don’t understand what that could have to do with anything.”

  “I can pick it up there, if it’s too tough for you to go.”

  “No! No thank you—I don’t want the police nosing around in my desk. I’ll have them send it here by messenger. Then you can come and have a peek.”

  “Right away?”

  “I’m hardly awake. It’s ten after nine. How’s eleven?”

  “Great. See you then.”

  So she has time to make a few adjustments, he thought slyly.

  The next step was to call her bank. The same bank as her late spouse. The same bank officer. He called. “Hello, this is Söderstedt,” he said in his singsong voice.

  “Who?”

  “The policeman. Yesterday you kindly gave me access to the deceased Eric Lindberger’s accounts. Today I need to look at his wife Justine’s.”

  “That’s different. I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.”

  “It’s possible,” he sang. “I can go the official route, but I don’t have time, and if it comes out that you’ve held up the most important murder investigation in modern Sweden, I’m sure your boss will be very pleased.”

  It was quiet for a minute. “I’ll fax it,” said the bank officer.

  “Like yesterday,” Söderstedt sang. “Thanks much!”

  He hung up and tapped the fax machine. It soon began to spit out pages decorated with numbers. While it did, he called the housing cooperative and found out about the ownership of the apartment. He called the vehicle registry, the tax authorities, the boat registry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the land registry. And he called the men who were to watch Justine Lindberger.

  “You’ll come along with me to Lindberger’s at eleven,” he said. “From that moment on, you can’t let her out of your sight.”

  Then he half-danced out the door.

  At eleven on the dot he was at the door intercom on Riddargatan. One minute later he was sitting on Justine Lindberger’s sofa.