face turned from pink to red. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me straightaway?”
Well, she thought. Partly because you’d already left several hours earlier; partly because you get annoyed if anyone calls you after work about things that aren’t a matter of life and death; but mainly because you would have seen a chance to make a bit on the side by calling the media, thereby making my job ten times harder. For a few seconds she actually considered saying all this out loud.
“We were going to tell you first thing this morning,” Amante said out of the blue. “We just wanted a chance to discuss it first. To be honest, neither of us believed that there was much urgency in a case where the victim had been dead for several months.”
Pärson glared at him, and even Julia got the evil eye before he threw himself back in his chair, which once again protested loudly.
“Bloody hell. This sort of thing needs to be reported at once; that should be obvious, surely? A connection to Skarpö changes everything. The media are going to lose it completely. The phones will be ringing off the hook. Those soft-shoed bastards must have got one of their hackers to flag up the case in the computer system. And got advance warning as soon as the lab found a match. The Security Police have been waiting for an opportunity to muscle in on the Skarpö case ever since last winter. It’s no wonder that they were so damn fast. I need to inform the head of Regional Crime right away.”
“Why do the Security Police want to get a foot in the door of the Skarpö investigation?”
Pärson glared at Julia.
“Are you hard of hearing? They want to stake out their position in the new police authority. Show that they’re worth their huge budget. If the Security Police manage to tie all the remaining loose ends in the Skarpö case and find the person who got away—the one we and National Crime have failed to find so far—it’ll make us look like incompetent idiots. Thanks a fucking bunch for that, Gabrielsson. I promise you now, I’ll be sure to tell the head of Regional Crime all about your exemplary work.”
Julia tried to control herself. She didn’t succeed as well as she usually did. And blamed it on the lack of caffeine.
“What about you, then,” she said, “just letting the Security Police stroll in and take over everything? Without so much as calling me, even though it was my case. Who did you talk to at the Security Police? What unit? What case number did he give?” She stopped herself, aware that she had crossed the line, actually way beyond it.
“Now listen,” Pärson said, leaning forward over his desk. “You’ve been in the force long enough to know that you have to take things as they come. Don’t try to blame this on me. If you’d kept me properly informed, I could have told them to go to hell—just like I want you and your little pal here to do now, before I resort to physical measures.”
As they were walking away from Pärson’s room, Amante drew her aside in the corridor. They stopped in front of a faded picture of an archipelago landscape.
“Explain what just happened to me,” he said quietly.
“I thought you’d worked it out,” she muttered. “Our work-shy boss allowed someone at the Security Police—whose name he can’t recall—to take over our case for reasons he can’t remember. And right now he’s calling his own superior and blaming the whole thing on us.”
“So we’re being taken off the case?”
“He didn’t actually say that in so many words. Not that it really matters. Without the body we haven’t got a case. No chance of making any progress. The National Forensics Lab has probably already received new orders to talk exclusively to the Security Police from now on, presumably for reasons relating to national security.”
She fell silent and nodded at a colleague walking past them.
“Okay, that’s pretty much what I thought,” Amante said when the man was out of earshot. “Just wanted to make sure.”
He leaned a bit closer to Julia as he glanced over his shoulder.
“I’ve got something I need to show you. It’s about our body.”
She raised her eyebrows and waited for him to go on. But Amante gave no indication of continuing.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me get a cup of coffee. Your room or mine?”
Amante shook his head. “Not here. In my apartment. I’ll make you coffee.”
* * *
Sarac got up from the camping mattress, switched the computer on, and sat down at the table. He stretched to shake off the half doze that had more or less replaced real sleep for him. Time was running out, his tranquilizers would last another four days, but he hoped everything would be over by then.
Three days had passed since their exchange. Frank had left shortly after the video was finished. Packed his things, gave him the key to the office, and showed him how the computer and encrypted e-mail worked before taking his leave. This time Sarac did shake his hand. He knew who Frank was now, and why he had gone to such lengths to find out the truth about Janus. But instead of trying to steal it the way he had last winter, he had offered something in exchange. A fair deal between two equal parties. Quid pro quo.
So there he was, in a shabby little office in a ramshackle building that was waiting to be demolished. A perfect hiding place.
By now they must be hunting all over for him. They’d have tracked him via the security cameras at the Central Station, and one way or another they’d have figured out that he’d been back to his apartment. But there the trail would go cold. He had taken three different buses to get out here, using a different travel card each time. All bought at different places and paid for in cash, according to Hunter’s instructions. He was safe here. Safe enough, anyway.
He had spent a whole day thinking about his next course of action. Then he made up his mind not to beat around the bush. He sent an encrypted e-mail revealing what he knew. What he wanted. But so far he hadn’t received a reply.
He logged into his online e-mail account and, as he waited for the program to load, wrapped his fingers around the bag of sleeping pills in his pocket. He counted them one more time. Odds and evens.
Debts I can’t escape till the day I die, the song in his head echoed, just as it had last Christmas.
The program opened up. There was a new message at the top of his in-box. He held his breath. Heard the music in his head get louder as he clicked to open the e-mail.
Curl your lip and make me want to live for one more day. Make me want to sleep through one more night.
An answer. One final task. His final task.
* * *
The apartment didn’t look anything like what Julia had been expecting. The lobby of the building in Östermalm was imposing, with high arches and a heavy limestone staircase with a polished teak handrail. But inside the heavy door of the apartment the furnishings were considerably more spartan.
She should really have said no. Should have made her so-called partner tell her whatever he had to say up in Police Headquarters instead of wasting time going home with him. That she went along with him without a word of protest or even asking any
