Buzz: A Thriller (8 page)

And now here they all were in the interview room . . .

The only question was: Who was responsible for her ending up there?

There was hardly any shortage of suspects.

♦  ♦  ♦

A small, tiled room that smelled of bleach, a bunk, a table, and two chairs that were fixed to the floor—that was all.

Somewhere in the distance an air conditioner rumbled into action and soon he felt a cold stream of air against his bare back.

They had removed all his clothes apart from his underpants, and it was only a matter of minutes before he started shivering.

His head was aching and even if he was presumably back in the city, his mouth still felt like it was full of desert sand.

The whole thing was pretty much a dense cloud of fog, interspersed with just a few random sequences of images. The cops’ helicopter landing beside the camp, commando yells, people all shouting at the same time.

In the next clip his hands were cuffed behind his back and he had been tied to one of the seats.

He must have passed out again, because he couldn’t remember much of the actual flight.

He was in pretty desperate need of some clothes, a cup of Java, and a warm shower—but most of all an explanation for what the hell was going on!

He was freezing his ass off in there, which was fucking ironic seeing as it was probably thirty degrees outside.

Two minutes after his teeth started chattering uncontrollably the door opened and a plump, mustached little man in a neatly pressed beige uniform walked in.

The man put a gray folder on the table, then sat down on the chair opposite HP. He opened the folder, slowly took out a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket, and began to read.

“E-e-e-embasssssy,” HP stammered. “N-need embass-ssy, but you haven’t got a cluuue what I’m s-s-saying, have y-y-you? I h-have rights, you know, r-r-rights!”

“Oh, I can understand what you’re saying perfectly well,” the man replied, and his faultless English brought HP up with a start.

“The problem is that I don’t know which embassy I should contact. Certainly not the Norwegian Embassy, seeing as your passport is fake.”

He looked at HP over his thin glasses.

“My name is Sergeant Aziz; I’m a detective with the Royal Dubai Police. So, who are you really?”

He looked curiously at HP.

“We haven’t managed to find any information at all about your true identity, neither on you, nor among your belongings at the hotel. It’s tempting to think that you don’t actually exist. And a man who doesn’t exist . . .”

The police officer leaned across the table.

“ . . . can’t have any rights—can he?”

♦  ♦  ♦

“So, Normén, to sum up: you arrived at the scene and found the approach road blocked by a crowd. Instead of unloading and walking to the building with bodyguards and an escort of government soldiers, you decided to abort the operation. Am I right so far?”

“You’re forgetting the attacker,” she interjected, getting more and more annoyed by the lead interviewer’s sarcastic tone of voice.

Westergren turned and gave his colleague a long look.

“But he didn’t show up until you were back in your vehicles?”

“No. I caught sight of him while we were standing there—before I made the decision to abort.”

“And was he armed then?” This from nice, bald, little Uncle Walthers, and she turned toward him.

“No, not then. He was carrying a bag and I thought I could see a glimpse of a gun in it.”

“
Thought? A glimpse?
You weren’t sure?”

Westergren again, still with the same irritating tone. She took a deep breath.

“Like I’ve already said, I thought it was a gun. Everything was happening very fast, it’s impossible to say exactly what happened when . . .”

“We appreciate that, Rebecca.” Walthers nodded. “But we’d still like you to try to break down the sequence of events as much as you can, down to the very smallest detail. That will help us understand everything better, because obviously neither Per nor I were there.”

He nodded toward his colleague and gave her another friendly smile that she couldn’t help reciprocating.

“It happened exactly the way I keep telling you. We arrived, stopped, then, while I was trying to evaluate the situation, I caught sight of the assailant in the crowd. After watching him for a few seconds I concluded that the situation was so threatening that both our charge and my team itself were in danger, and as a result I made the decision to abort.”

She gave Walthers a relieved smile, then glanced at Runeberg. Her boss’s face wasn’t giving anything away. He was sitting there with his arms folded, watching the two men on the other side of the table.

“And then what happened, Rebecca?” Walthers went on gently.

“We began to move backward and the crowd started to go mad. They got through the cordon and chaos broke out. I was almost knocked off my feet but managed to stay upright and draw my pistol. Then the firing started . . .”

“You were firing at live targets?” Westergren snapped, quick as a cobra, but she didn’t take the bait.

“No, I fired warning shots—three, to be precise, but because it wasn’t possible to fire at the ground because of the risk of hitting third parties I was obliged to fire into the air. At about the same time someone else, probably the soldiers in among the crowd, opened fire.”

Walthers gestured to her to go on.

“I saw, or maybe heard, people being hit by gunfire, panic broke out, and people started running in all directions. We carried on reversing. I was caught between the car and the door and that’s when he came running up.”

“The assailant, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“You wrote in your report that he was running in front of the car, and that you saw him reach for his gun and draw it. That you considered firing at him, but that your visibility and the movement of the car made that impossible . . .”

“Exactly,” she repeated, more impatiently this time. They had been through the whole sequence of events several times now, and it had all been recorded.
What was it they didn’t understand?

“Rebecca, could it have been like this—and I’m merely raising this as a possibility, one colleague to another . . .”

Walthers peered at her from over the top of his reading glasses.

“Considering that none of the other bodyguards or anyone else at the scene noticed any assailant—might it have been the case that the stressful situation and limited visibility were affecting your judgment? That you might have been mistaken with regard to the attacker?”

She opened her mouth to reply but he interrupted her.

“No one here would think that strange. Quite the contrary.” He gestured toward the others in the room.

“We all know what it’s like when the adrenaline kicks in. You get tunnel vision and focus on individual details that really need to be seen in a broader context. A cell phone becomes a hand grenade, a camera becomes a revolver . . . That sort of thing has happened before. Could that have been what happened in this case, Rebecca?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but Runeberg put his hand on her knee. Clearly she had underestimated the kindly uncle. Even if he wrapped things up nicely, he was still the one trying to trick her into making some kind of admission.

She took a deep breath.

“It really isn’t my place to comment on what anyone else saw or didn’t see. I can only speak for myself,” she said as calmly as she could, and noticed Walthers’s friendly smile slowly fade away.

“I saw an attacker and a weapon, a clear danger to both our charge and my team, so I responded accordingly in line with my duty.”

She gave Runeberg a quick sideways glance and was rewarded with a nod of encouragement. Disappointed, Walthers looked down at his papers and Westergren took over.

“What’s your response to the fact that people died at the scene, Normén? In all likelihood as a direct consequence of your dubious actions . . .”

Rebecca jerked. She had realized that people must have been hurt, possibly even killed when the soldiers opened fire—but having it thrown in her face like this was an entirely different matter. To judge from the expression on Westergren’s face, he didn’t care if he’d crossed a boundary.

“Once again . . .” she said, as calmly as she could even though her anger was bubbling closer and closer to the surface. “I made my evaluation based upon the threat to my team and the person in my charge. I can’t take responsibility for what anyone else did or didn’t do.”

“So you’re saying you don’t care that people were being killed around you?”

“Of course I’m not!” she snapped, but before she could go on Runeberg interrupted her.

“Where are you trying to get with these questions, Westergren?”

The two men stared at each other.

“Interview witnesses must stay silent during interviews,” Walthers piped up from the side, but neither of them looked at him.

“I’m interested in whether or not Police Inspector Normén really understands that one of the consequences of her questionable actions was that people died. That she directly or indirectly caused their deaths by provoking the soldiers to open fire.”

“That’s out of order, Per . . .”

“Is it really,
Ludvig
? Maybe you should pay a bit more attention to the sections of the penal code dealing with misuse of office instead of spending so much time in the gym?”

Runeberg slowly stood up, and Westergren did the same.

“Okay, let’s all just calm down,” Walthers quacked. He stood up as well and, with some difficulty, placed himself between the two men.

“Interview suspended at 09:51 for a short break.”

♦  ♦  ♦

He had spent something like three days in this cell. At least he thought he had. Sleeping on the wooden bunk, shitting in a bucket, and trying to pass the time as best he could. And obviously he was so desperate for a cigarette he felt he was going to explode. But at least he had been given some clothes.

A white T-shirt and a pair of orange overalls that were at least two sizes too small.

During the first few hours he had quite literally shat himself in terror, but as he gradually came around and ate and drank something, the fog began to disperse and he started to piece a few things together.

He had been seriously doped up when the cops arrested
him, and now they had also worked out his passport was fake. But even if both crimes were pretty serious down here, they still didn’t quite warrant this sort of treatment.

There was something that didn’t make sense . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

“What the hell was that all about?” She glowered at Runeberg as her boss fiddled absentmindedly with the coffeemaker.

“Nothing special . . .”

“Oh, come on! You were about to start fighting in there, you and Westergren . . . So you know each other?”

Runeberg nodded reluctantly.

“Per and I were beat cops at the same time, a long time ago, and he was a difficult bastard even then—not very collegial, if you get what I mean?”

She shrugged in reply.

“So?”

Runeberg sighed.

“He applied to join the Security Police a few years ago and when I was asked about it I advised against his appointment. Somehow he found out and ever since then he’s been waiting for a chance to get back at me. I had a feeling he’d jump on this case. I mean, how often does a bodyguard end up in Police Complaints?”

“So that was why you suggested coming along? To play at being my guardian?”

He muttered something in reply.

“I appreciate the thought, but it would have been better if you’d told me this at the start . . .”

He nodded.

“You’re quite right—I should have. But everyone makes mistakes, don’t they?”

He gave her a long look that she was still trying to interpret when they were called back into the interview room.

“We’ve outlined the case to the prosecutor . . .” Walthers began. “The usual procedure in cases like this is that we inform your boss in writing of any decisions, and then he or she would take the necessary action until the investigation is concluded.”

Westergren butted in.

“But now we’re in the fortunate position of having your boss here with you as a witness to the proceedings, so we can tell you both that as of now, Normén, you are officially under suspicion of misuse of office, and possibly gross misuse.”

He grinned and nodded to Runeberg.

“Superintendent Runeberg will inform you about what is going to happen now, but in cases where an officer is suspected of misconduct during the course of their duties, there isn’t really much choice. The new rules are crystal clear. Maybe you’d like to take it from here,
Ludvig
 . . . ?”

Runeberg’s face had gone completely white. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but shut it again almost at once. Instead he took a deep breath and turned to Rebecca.

“You’re relieved of duty as of now, Rebecca. You’ll be on full salary, but for the duration of the investigation I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to hand over your keys and pass card.”

♦  ♦  ♦

They walked back to Police Headquarters together. The air was dry and cold and a few feeble snowflakes occasionally
drifted down, only to disintegrate on the black tarmac. Neither of them said much.

Runeberg grunted a few short sentences about routine procedure in internal investigations, then some clichés about being sure everything would sort itself out. She could hardly be bothered to reply.

When they reached the department she had to hand over her pass card and her key to the weapons store.

She was allowed to keep her police ID.

In other words she was still a police officer—for a bit longer.

Small mercy.

Runeberg looked as if there was something else troubling him, but she didn’t feel like listening. On the way out she bumped into Karolina Modin, but the other woman merely said hello quickly and avoided looking Rebecca in the eye.

The moment the gate closed behind her, the strange, dreamlike sensation returned.

As if nothing that was happening was . . .

♦  ♦  ♦