Trapped, page 19
He remembered the conversation with Agnes’s father very well. He hadn’t always been a murder investigator, so he’d had all sorts of conversations over the course of his career. Some family members would break down the moment he said he was from the police. Even if he was only calling about a missing cat that had turned up dead. The fact that pet owners always took it so hard never ceased to surprise him. They ought to know that animals always disappeared. Others would react angrily and accuse him of professional negligence. Like that woman whose Michael Kors bag had been found in perfect condition but the mobile phone had been gone. Eventually he’d had enough and asked her which mobile phone she was using to talk to him … People. What the hell was wrong with them?
It was harder when he had to notify family members of a death, especially over the phone. It made you feel so powerless, hearing them going to pieces at the other end of the line when there was nothing you could do to help.
Jesper Ceci, however, belonged to another category. He had sounded almost … polite. Which might have been his way of being shocked – it wasn’t unusual for relatives to distance themselves emotionally in order to cope with bad tidings. But when it came to Jesper, Christer didn’t think that had been the case. Jesper had a new wife and a five-year-old son in Arvika. He’d had very little contact with his daughter in Stockholm since moving away. When Christer had called, Jesper had talked about Agnes as if she were a distant relative. Someone he had met at a dinner a few years ago. It had sent shivers down Christer’s spine.
And now he had to call Jesper again, to ask a lot of questions that he knew Jesper had zero interest in answering. Jesus Christ. But it was best to get it out of the way so that this day could end. Like they said, tomorrow was another day. As if it would be any better …
He got up from his desk and opened the door into the corridor.
Some people liked to shut the door when having a difficult conversation. Christer preferred it open. The sight of the corridor and the sounds coming from it provided a link to reality. A far from ideal reality, but better than his little office. If nothing else, it was bigger.
Due to the new data protection rules, all details of Agnes’s relatives had been erased as soon as any suspicion of a crime had been discounted. The police were now only allowed to retain personal data as part of crime prevention efforts, and Agnes’s suicide hadn’t fallen into that category. Until now. If anyone had asked Christer, which no one ever did, he would have pointed out that General Data Protection Regulation was a crock of shit. Surely it had never done any harm to keep records of necessary information about people? He couldn’t understand why everyone suddenly needed to be so goddamn secretive. If someone wanted to know the last four digits of his social security number, he was happy to tell them.
Presumably someone from the National Board of Forensic Medicine could have given him the number, because they’d had the unhappy task of notifying Agnes’s next of kin of their intention to exhume her body. But rather than go down that route he decided to google the phone number for Jesper’s employer.
While on Google, he’d also found a recent article on the Arvika Nyheter website. Jesper was active in Sweden’s Future, a political party strongly influenced by the Progress Party in Norway but even more right-wing. They had begun to gain popularity when they declared that people who didn’t pay taxes shouldn’t receive benefits. They’d shown no hesitation in calling it ‘the immigration issue’.
Christer looked at the photo of Jesper used to illustrate the article. Agnes’s father was smiling coldly at him with his thinning hair combed back and his blue jacket accentuated by a red scarf around his neck. It looked as if he was going out sailing. Jesper was on the local council in Arvika and the article was about changes he hoped to see in the coming year. Christer had no difficulty imagining Jesper happily announcing that immigrants must in future wear armbands.
He couldn’t bring himself to read any more. Instead, he dialled the number for Arvika municipality and got through to someone on the switchboard. After three attempts, he was put through. Jesper picked up on the first ring.
‘Enough,’ he said into Christer’s ear. ‘I’ve told you not to call here, it doesn’t look good.’
‘Er, hello. This is Christer Bengtsson from the Stockholm police.’
‘Oh! Sorry,’ said Jesper in an entirely different tone of voice. ‘I do apologize: I thought you were my wife.’
‘No, it’s Christer Bengtsson, as I said. We spoke once before when—’
‘I remember,’ Jesper cut in. ‘It’s not a conversation you forget in a hurry.’
Christer was surprised to hear that Jesper didn’t have a Värmland accent, despite the fact that he had spoken to him before and surely ought to have remembered that. What was more, he’d just read in the article that Jesper had been born and raised in Halmstad. Memory could be spotty sometimes. The voice in his ear had a clear Halland lilt to it. ‘Not a conversation you forget in a hurry.’ Funny, Christer could have sworn that that was exactly what a man like Jesper would have tried to do.
‘I’m sorry to call you again,’ he said. ‘But as you’re aware, the investigation into your daughter’s death has been reopened and her body has been exhumed in light of new information that suggests she may have been murdered.’
Jesper was silent.
Christer waited a moment and then continued: ‘I need to ask whether Agnes had any enemies, if you’re aware of anyone having threatened her? Was she in debt, or involved in criminal activities—’
‘How dare you suggest that my daughter was a criminal!’ Jesper shouted so loudly that Christer’s ears rang. ‘One more word and I’ll sue you and the entire Stockholm police force for slander! You’re a bunch of incompetent morons! I never believed it was suicide! As if she would take her own life in a park, in front of a bloody theatre! As if she was in a scene from a play!’
There was something contrived about Jesper’s voice. Christer slammed the receiver against his forehead in frustration. He had called Jesper at the local council. If someone could hear their conversation then Jesper needed a line of retreat open to him. It would look bad if a politician from Sweden’s Future had had a daughter who mixed with the wrong crowd. Christer didn’t believe for one second that Jesper cared. He was yelling because he had an audience and wanted to sound like a devoted father.
‘I didn’t mean to be insensitive,’ Christer said patiently. ‘I realize you didn’t know anything about her life in Stockholm, given the distance and how long it had been since you’d seen her. I understand you’re very busy with your career in Arvika – and congratulations on the new family, by the way.’
‘Be careful what you insinuate,’ Jesper said icily.
The soft Halland accent was in sharp contrast to the cold tone. Something was shifting in Christer’s subconscious. Something that was crying out for his attention, a pattern he ought to spot. But it slipped away as soon as he tried to catch it. He replied to Jesper matter-of-factly:
‘I’m not insinuating anything. Agnes was a grown woman with her own life. My objective in calling was simply to inform you that we have reopened the investigation.’
Jesper fell silent again. It sounded like he was moving, perhaps into another room.
‘That … terrorist,’ Jesper said in a low voice. ‘If I were you, I’d start with him.’
‘Who are we talking about?’ Christer asked, the adrenaline kicking in.
‘The one she lived with. From Iran or Syria or wherever it was. Barely making ends meet. Wouldn’t even have had somewhere to live if Agnes hadn’t taken pity on him. I’ll bet he was desperate to have that flat to himself.’
‘What makes you think he’s a terrorist?’
Christer was searching feverishly for a pen to take notes.
‘Maybe not him personally. But his kind. They’ll do anything to get ahead. Even killing my daughter.’
‘I got the impression they were good friends,’ Christer said, giving up on his search.
He wasn’t sure the conversation was worth noting down.
‘Agnes, friends with someone like that?’ said Jesper. ‘Never. It’s precisely that kind of naive attitude that has got the country into the state it’s in today. Unregulated. Unguarded. I thought if anyone knew that, it was the police. But you haven’t been out into the real Sweden – I can hear that much. You should be ashamed. Get in touch once you’ve caught him.’
Jesper hung up. Christer sighed and looked at the photo in the Arvika Nyheter article again. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t condone a father abandoning his daughter on her eighteenth birthday. But perhaps it had been the biggest favour Jesper had ever done Agnes. At least she’d had a few years without having to listen to him day in day out.
And then she’d died.
Daniel Bargabriel had already been questioned and released. It hadn’t seemed as if he was guilty. Not then. But Mina had reported how he’d fled the cafe after her visit, and now he was missing. It didn’t look good. Far from it. And Tuva’s grandparents had said that Tuva thought Daniel would hurt her. Bloody hell.
He sat down in his seat and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day. And not one of the most positive ones, at that. He didn’t want to belittle the dreadful things that had happened to Agnes and Tuva, but at the same time, everybody had to die sooner or later. You could never know whose turn it was or when it might happen. That was the way it was. Sometimes Christer imagined a black-robed figure with a scythe darkening his door. Not necessarily because he wanted to die. He was pretty sure he didn’t. But a bit of variation might be nice. Death. Life. Fucking hell.
He started up the CCTV footage on his computer with a sigh. Not that he had been planning to watch it again. But if he had it up on the screen playing, it would look like he was working. He clasped his hands over his stomach, leaned back against the backrest and closed his eyes, hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be Daniel – he didn’t want to add grist to Jesper’s mill. But right now everything was pointing that way. Christer sighed. Regrettably, even racists were occasionally right.
42
In Srebrenica, he’d been a carpenter. He’d made things with his hands. He’d inherited his profession from his father and his father’s father, and it was as if all their accumulated knowledge had been refined into him. At least, that was what his grandmother had always said. He could look at a piece of wood and see what was within it, what it wanted, what it ought to be shaped into. He had created so many beautiful things with his hands. He’d never let go of anything that wasn’t exactly how it was meant to be.
Now he was no longer a creator. The war had taken away the desire to create. Death had dimmed his eye for beauty. Where previously there had been joy, there was now only a black mass comprising the collective weight of the war. All its sorrows could be found inside him. All the pain gathered in his joints, making his hands clench at the very thought of creating something.
But the war had left him with a different talent. Digging. Digging to bury the dead. He had lost count of how many people he had buried. Now he dug holes for coffins. People buried one by one. Under the auspices of the church.
Then.
Then they had simply heaved in heaps of people. Mostly men. And boys. Deep graves filled with people toppling in like animals. The sound of flesh landing on flesh. Bodies being stripped of those few valuables they had. Most had nothing worth stealing. They were poor. Insignificant.
Sometimes he wondered whether Mladić could hear the heavy thudding of bodies from inside his cell. Probably not. The sound of eight thousand Bosnian Muslims being tipped into graves ought to be echoing between the cell walls, but no doubt that bastard was sitting pretty with food, heating and a TV. It took a particular kind of monster to murder eight thousand people.
‘All right, mate. I’m Ove – the man with the digger. You’ve gotta tell me how to dig.’
Nikola shook the proffered hand. The man was in his fifties. He was stocky, bald and had tattoos covering his head. A company decal, Ove’s Mini Excavation, was visible on the small digger. Nikola looked at him suspiciously. In Srebrenica, the tattoos would have indicated that he was a criminal who had spent at least ten years inside. He wasn’t sure what they meant here, but he decided that he would at no point turn his back on the man.
‘If you start by digging carefully through the top layer,’ said Nikola, ‘then Emil and I will take over as we get closer to the coffin. They’re usually two or three metres down, so don’t go further than one and a half, just to be safe.’
The man with the tattooed head nodded and headed back to his digger. Nikola followed him suspiciously with his gaze.
A man and a woman were approaching and close behind them were another man and woman. The two at the back were wearing protective overalls.
‘Mina Dabiri. I’m with the police,’ said the first woman. ‘This is Vincent Walder.’
‘It was me who brought in Ove,’ said the man next to the policewoman. ‘He’s good. And my neighbour. Well, the nearest house at any rate. I assume he called you?’
‘Is he a criminal?’ Nikola asked.
It was best to be upfront. You needed to know where you were with people. The man stared at him.
‘A criminal? I don’t think so. Why … why do you ask?’
Nikola nodded curtly in reply.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘He seems good.’
‘We’ve also got forensics here,’ Mina added, nodding at the couple behind them. ‘They will take over and deal with the coffin as soon as it’s been exhumed.’
Nikola nodded again. He was never one for words, preferring just to get on and do his job. The Swedes were far too talkative sometimes. It was as if they couldn’t bear the silence and were always striving to fill it. Personally, he loved the silence.
Nikola and Emil took a couple of steps back to keep out of the way of the digger. They didn’t need to talk to each other. They were brothers. Not by blood, but ever since they had dug graves in Srebrenica, they hadn’t left each other’s sides. They had both lost everything. Their families were somewhere in the anonymous mass graves. Never found. Never identified.
They had come to Sweden together and shared a small two-bed flat in Rinkeby. Nikola cooked. Emil did the washing up. They existed. It would be too much to say they lived.
The digger was being deftly operated by the man with the tattooed head, and it didn’t take long before the upper layer of soil was carefully peeled away. He squinted at the man who had come with the policewoman and the way he was attentively watching the process with the digger. Somehow, the man reminded Nikola of his brother. Nermin had been the intelligent one of the two. When Nikola had been creating with his hands, Nermin had been creating with his brain.
Before the war, his brother had been a Maths lecturer at the university. Nikola often missed him. He didn’t understand why he had been spared while Nermin had been dust and bones for decades.
‘What did you tell forensics about me?’ the man said to the woman.
Apparently he had forgotten Nikola was there.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Julia’s team is fairly new, so they’re not that sure who’s on it or what consultants have been drafted in to assist. Just play along as if you’re one of us – it’s unlikely they’ll be any the wiser.’
Nikola shook his head. Everyone had secrets, even here. Too many secrets were a bad thing. It was when you didn’t trust everyone that things could come tumbling down. The digger reversed and stopped. The cab door opened.
‘Is that about right? Or should I keep digging?’
Nikola took the spade in his hand and went over to the grave. Emil followed close behind. They peered down. He assessed the distance from the surface to where the soil had been dug up. He looked at Emil, who nodded.
‘We’ll take over now,’ he said.
They climbed down into the pit and began to dig with their shovels. In his breast ached the memory of another soil, another death, too long ago.
But he felt it now too.
Always now.
43
At first he didn’t hear the phone ringing. Not until Maria kicked his foot.
‘Are you going to answer?’ she said.
He had been deeply absorbed in a book on behavioural patterns and age-related crises. The author was outlining which views, values and actions were most common in various phases of life. People weren’t as different as they thought. In the beginning, he’d bought the book to help him understand his family. He didn’t want to make the mistake of believing that an eight-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, a nineteen-year-old and a forty-year-old all thought the same way. But he had begun to suspect that the data the book was based on didn’t cover his family.
This time he was reading it to try to understand the murderer. Perhaps by assessing the actions they were aware of, he could try to calculate age, gender and background. That would be something at least. But he had got hung up on the fact that the murderer’s actions were so contradictory.
‘Vincent?’ Maria said again in an irritated tone of voice. ‘Your phone is ringing! Or don’t you dare answer because I’m sitting here and can hear?’
He closed the book and looked at his mobile lying on the coffee table. Mina’s name was glowing at him. He quickly picked it up to answer while Maria pointedly turned up the TV.
‘Give my best to your lover,’ she said. ‘Just don’t wake Aston. He’s had a rough day at school.’
He went into the study. It was that or compete with the sound from Let’s Dance on TV4 Play.
‘Hi Mina,’ he said, pulling the door to.
‘Christer has spoken to Tuva’s grandparents – I just read the report,’ she said.
He sat down at the desk and slowly spun in his chair. Mina wouldn’t want to put a phone that had been lying on a table or in her pocket against her ear, not without cleaning it thoroughly first, so she was either using headphones or Airpods. Which would also have to be cleaned before use. How many times would she use them before having to buy new ones? He decided that if he ever bought her a Christmas present, it was going to be an extra pair of Airpods.
