Anger Mode (24 page)

Jonna looked at Walter suspiciously.

“You have a natural intuition which will enable you to become a really excellent cop,” Walter continued, with no trace of flattery. “You should accept the fact that you have a talent. There are, in fact, colleagues with over thirty years’ experience who don’t even come close to being able to do the things that I’ve seen you do so far.”

Jonna now looked at Walter uncertainly. She could not tell if this was an attempt at cheap persuasion or if he really meant what he said. But it did not matter; she had already decided anyway. She would definitely not be weak and submissive like her mother. She had promised herself that a long time ago. Nowadays, it was all about following her own convictions and she was actually a little proud of what Walter had said – if he really meant it.

“What’s wrong with a little hacking here or there?” said Jörgen, looking at Jonna. “It’s for a good cause and, by the way, quite a few political parties have engaged in it.”

“Check on Tor – or Headcase, which is his nickname – and that Finn,” Walter said. “If you need to lie, tell them that you need to question them to get information regarding a tip-off. You don’t need to give any more details. It’s perfectly legal and in accordance with regulations.”

“Yes, but you may have forgotten that I’m no longer on loan to the CID,” objected Jonna. “At RSU, I can’t devote my time to running checks on people as I please. And I don’t even know their real names.”

“I seem to recall that Headcase’s full name is Tor Hedman or something similar. The only thing I know about the Finn is that he’s called something like John or Johnny Salminen. They’re both in the criminal records database.”

“And in the unlikely event that I manage to find them without bending the rules, what details should I question them about?”

“You’re just going to scare them a little by telling them that they’re being watched by the police. And that if they touch so much as a hair on Jörgen Blad’s head, we’ll know who’s responsible. They’ll understand the implications of that message.”

Jörgen smiled at Walter’s last point.

Until just recently, the detective’s attitude towards Jörgen Blad had been chilly, to say the least. Jörgen gradually began to regain his confidence. There was indeed a way out of this miserable mess, as well as a bonus that he could never have dreamed of.

C
HAPTER 17

OMAR LEANED BACK in his armchair and threw his feet up on the dark oak desk. Jerry Salminen stared with envy at his Italian hand-sewn shoes and wondered how much they cost.

“My time is valuable. Get to the point,” Omar said and brushed some imaginary dandruff flecks from his tailored Armani suit.

Jerry cleared his throat. “Well, as I said on the phone, we didn’t grab the geezer you wanted. Instead, we got those fucking Albanians shoved up our arseholes. Your contact has royally arse-fucked us by giving the same job to Haxhi.”

Omar did not answer. Instead, he began to study his nails. One was about to split. “Yes, you seem to have had your arses fucked, to use your own words,” he said, without lifting his gaze.

“He has fucking screwed us over!” Jerry cried out.

“What makes you think that?”

“But I told you on the phone. Me and Headcase were almost eating lead. And he was the only one who knew that we would be at that bloody Jörgen Blad’s place at exactly that time.”

“But how do you know that it was Haxhi? It could have been anyone.”

“I heard them jabbering in Albanian before they drove off with their tails between their legs. They were probably not expecting us to be armed. Your client has ratted on us to Haxhi.”

“That’s not very nice,” Omar declared, totally uninterested.

“We want to talk to the guy and ask him why he screwed us over,” Jerry said.

“You see, that’s not quite how it works in my line of business,” Omar explained.

“What business is that?” Tor asked.

Omar took his feet off his desk and leaned forwards with his hands together as if in prayer. “Now, listen,” he said. “I’m just a broker and have nothing to do with the services on offer. A broker handles the connection between a buyer and a seller. It could be services or just plain goods, and I get a small cut so that I can eat every day. If I were to start blabbing the names of my clients, I wouldn’t last in this business. No one would risk hiring me. Discretion is a matter of honour.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jerry said, shaking his head. “We know that already. But how the fuck could Haxhi find us if that bloke hadn’t told him?”

Omar shrugged his shoulders while pretending to be looking for an answer deep in the recesses of his mind. He hummed something to himself while fiddling with a gigantic signet ring. The gold ring was as big as a five-crown coin and embellished with a huge diamond, and it obviously sat too tightly on his finger. Omar’s concentration briefly switched from the signet ring.

“I don’t have a clue how Haxhi found you, to be honest,” he said, and folded his hands. “And you won’t get any help from me. You’ll have to handle your war with Haxhi yourselves.”

“That’s exactly what we’re trying to do,” Jerry explained and started to lose patience. “At least give us the telephone number to your fucking client.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Omar warned him, and fixed his eyes on Jerry.

Jerry quickly calmed himself.

“You could always call him and ask if it’s okay to talk directly with us on the phone. A question never killed anyone,” Jerry suggested in a mild voice.

Omar glanced at his mobile phone by the edge of his desk. Then he shook his head in refusal. “No, I can’t do that. Sorry, boys.”

“Bloody hell, Omar …” Jerry pleaded, without success.

The explosion made Jerry fall off his chair. The all too familiar smell of burnt gunpowder stuck in his nose and his ears were ringing. He quickly felt all over his body to see if he had been hit. A quick glance around the room revealed that there were no uninvited guests. Only that Tor and Omar sat paralyzed in their chairs. Omar’s eyes were wide open and fixed on the wall behind Jerry. Tor sat expressionless, with his hands under the desk.

A tense, unpleasant silence filled the room. Jerry was rapidly becoming charged with adrenaline and his body started to shake. He slowly stood up and leaned over the desktop towards Omar’s ribcage, which was moving with small, convulsive jerks. A faint gurgling came from his mouth. Suddenly, Omar coughed up blood and it hit Jerry in the face. Jerry recoiled, falling back into the chair he had just fallen off. Omar’s upper body slowly started to topple forwards and finally fell onto the desk, where it lay motionless. His hands were still entwined as if in prayer.

Jerry dried the blood off his face and then stared at his bloodstained palms. He felt the taste of Omar’s blood in his mouth. His stomach began to heave and he threw himself sideways to vomit. The contents of Jerry’s stomach mixed with Omar’s blood on the floor. The sight of the sludge made Jerry throw up until only bile was left. He retched and sat down heavily in the chair, his forehead soaked with sweat. His pulse was racing as if he had completed a leg workout at the gym.

“I have to clean this shit off me,” Jerry gasped and stumbled out of the room without paying any attention to Tor. He had not vomited this much since his upset stomach in Thailand.

When Jerry returned, his face free of blood, he was visibly shaken and was still breathing heavily.

“Why the fuck didn’t you wait for my signal before you shot him?” he snarled between breaths.

Tor still sat frozen in his seat. “It …” he began.

“Nobody heard the shot at least,” Jerry angrily cut him off. “This building’s as empty as your head.”

“It went off too soon,” Tor finally blurted the words out.

This was the second time Tor had killed someone. The first time was eight years ago when a neighbour had interfered while they were breaking into a house in Nacka. The bloke was suddenly standing there in the living room with a baseball bat in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, threatening them with both the police and a beating. Tor panicked and shot the man twice in the stomach, and once in the head to put an end to his whimpering. There had been a hell of a fuss in the newspapers after that happened. This time, it was supposed to feel easier. “It’s the first time that’s the worst,” Jerry had said. “You get used to it, just like everything else. Human beings are made like that.” Jerry’s mum had been a psychologist, so he knew about that sort of stuff.

“So, it went off too soon,” Jerry echoed and scrutinized Tor closely. Tor hung his head and he sheepishly fiddled with his Desert Eagle Mark XIX, which still had a hot barrel.

“I fucking swear I’m going to rip your head off one of these days,” Jerry growled.

Tor rubbed his neck. “What do we do now?” he wondered.

Jerry thought for a brief moment. “We have to dump Omar somewhere.”

“Where then?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Jerry screamed and kicked over the wastepaper bin by the side of the desk. “I have to think.” He sat in a worn leather sofa that stood next to the wall and pressed his hands against his head. Fuck, everything always has to be so complicated. Nothing was going their way right now.

Tor nodded, showing that he understood. Jerry had to think and it was best to shut up. All at once, Tor thought of Omar’s signet ring. As a John Doe, he had no need for it now. Carefully, he lifted Omar’s head and pulled out his clenched fists. He glanced at Jerry, who was lying on the sofa with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Tor uncurled Omar’s fingers so he could grab the signet ring. He twisted the ring while pulling it. No matter how much he pulled, he could not get it loose. From his jacket pocket, he took out a Hong Kong copy of a Swiss army knife and pressed it against the finger as hard as he could. He leant on the knife, but it could not cut through the bone. Tor looked around and saw a stainless-steel paperweight on the desk. He reached for the paperweight and smashed it onto the knife blade.

The crash snapped Jerry out of his meditation. He looked at Tor, who turned around with a grin and held up something golden in his hand.

“What’s that?” he asked, irritated.

“How much do you think this is worth?” Tor asked, staring at the shiny trophy.

Curious, Jerry went over to him and studied the signet ring. He weighed it carefully in his hand.

“Judging from the fat diamond, we ought to get fifty grand for it. At least.”

“Fucking sweet.” Tor lit up.

At first, Jerry nodded his appreciation, but soon became sullen again. “We don’t have time for this shit, so we won’t bother taking Omar with us. We’ll make it look like an ordinary robbery instead.”

“But what about DNA and that shit?” Tor asked hesitantly.

“To hell with it. There’s lots of crooked deals done here and every hard ex-con in the country has left DNA in this room. The cops will have a hell of a time trying to sort us from most of the maximum-security villains.”

“And the cake mix you dumped on the floor?” Tor persisted.

Jerry looked at Tor. That was a point. The vomit that he had sprayed on the floor was mixed with Omar’s blood. That cocktail would be much more difficult to explain away in a police interrogation. It was very probable that the police would identify Jerry’s DNA in the mess. And since both he and Tor were in the police’s fucking DNA database, all the cops had to do was to collect the first prize. Trying to clean up the traces of DNA was not an alternative either. No amount of mopping and scrubbing could stop a conscientious bastard cop from eventually finding a trace.

“Okay, we’ll have to torch the place and burn the DNA and Omar instead,” Jerry decided after quickly thinking it over. “Go downstairs and siphon off the stiff’s car. Then bring the juice back here. We are going to have a bloody big bonfire.”

Tor looked confused. “But I don’t have a petrol can,” he said.

“Then you’ll have to im–pro–vise. Check if he has a spare tank. Use your head,” Jerry said, regretting the last sentence. He signalled to Tor to get going. He would meticulously search through Omar’s room. If someone came round before he and Tor were finished, they would deal with the problem then. Right now, they had to find the client.

After searching the ramshackle industrial building, Tor had established that there was nothing that could be used to empty the petrol from Omar’s car. What Jerry had said was true. The warehouse was stripped clean, down to the last screw. The only thing that could possibly work was an oil barrel that stood outside a wooden hut on the other side of the yard. He stood and rubbed his neck, thinking. What a fucking dump. Why the hell had Omar placed his office in the middle of nowhere? It was five kilometres to the nearest houses and at least fifty to Stockholm. The industrial buildings and adjoining wooden hut looked as if they could collapse at any moment. Bearing in mind Omar’s expensive habits and cars, money was not a problem. He could easily have owned an office on Stureplan among the law twisters and stock-market yuppies. That would have made it easier to do business with him. Why he insisted on staying in this rundown shack was beyond Tor’s understanding.

Tor was suddenly flooded with remorse. It was only now that he realized that they had cut off the hand that fed them with the jobs that gave them the biggest money. Without Omar, he and Jerry would have a hard time finding work. Like a spider in a net, Omar took care of all the contacts and handed out jobs from different clients as contracts. As Omar’s subcontractors, he and Jerry’s performance had been exemplary, which in turn had generated new jobs. Now his nervous trigger finger had cut the umbilical cord to the cash cow and their future. Had Jerry really thought about the consequences?

From the boot of the stolen Saab 9-3 that he and Jerry had arrived in, Tor pulled out a hose and his well-worn, grey steel toolbox and walked over to Omar’s new Mercedes-Benz GL450. He looked at the five-metre-long monster SUV, which cost about the same as three upmarket houses in Tor’s home town, Klockhammar.

After emptying the petrol from Omar’s car, there remained only the problem of getting the barrel up to the office. With fifty litres of petrol, the barrel weighed at least eighty kilos. He would have to ask Jerry for help.

With some exertion, Jerry picked up the oil barrel by himself. He was now suffering for those missed workouts, and it took a great deal of groans interspersed with Finnish swearwords before the barrel stood where they wanted.

“I haven’t found shit in here except for his mobile and a laptop,” Jerry said, breathing hard after he put down the barrel next to Omar’s corpse.

“
Nada
. Unless he’s hidden them bloody good. But who’d risk stashing stuff here? He has his cash abroad, for sure. His mobile, on the other hand, is full of phone numbers. One number in particular is interesting,” Jerry explained.

“Which one?”

“Check it out,” he said and held up Omar’s mobile phone. “Do you see the letters ‘HO’?”

Tor nodded.

“HO must be Haxhi Osmanaj.”

“You think so?”

Jerry nodded triumphantly. “When I pushed him to call up the client, he looked at his mobile. I bet he’s got all the numbers he uses in this phone.”

Tor clapped his hands. “Fucking sweet.”

“Yes, but the number for Haxhi is of no use to us, unless you want to call and ask him out on a date.”

“Why did you show me the number then?” Tor asked, shrugging.

Jerry gazed at him patronizingly. “Let me explain it to you. If you search through Omar’s call history, you can see that Omar has called the same number after almost every incoming and outgoing call from Haxhi. You can see that from the time log. Omar either called, or got a call from, the client every time Haxhi called Omar, or when Omar called Haxhi. This number must be the squealer that screwed us. Got it now?”