Europa Blues (15 page)

Mörner blinked intensely. His mouth moved but no sound came out.

‘Can we move the microphones back?’ an irritated technician piped up.

Jorge Chavez switched the television off. The trio exchanged glances which veered between rage, irritation and hilarity.

‘How long is it possible for someone like Mörner to cling on to his job?’ Kerstin Holm eventually asked. ‘Where’s the limit?’

‘Far, far away,’ Jorge answered. ‘She was good, wasn’t she?’

‘Television makes colours look brighter,’ Paul said. ‘Twenty lengths?’

‘
Say no more
,’ Jorge replied in English, pursing his lips. ‘What’re you working on?’

‘Could you get up?’

‘If you tell me what you’re working on.’

‘I can’t until you get up.’

They had, in other words, reached a deadlock. A clinch. An unprecedented power struggle playing out between the room’s two males. Kerstin Holm sighed deeply. Eventually Chavez shifted slightly so that Hjelm could pull the paper out from beneath him.

‘Draw,’ Chavez said, jumping down from the table, grabbing the spare chair and sitting down.

‘I suppose so,’ said Hjelm, smoothing the crumpled sheet of paper. He pointed at the big plus sign and continued: ‘A little system of coordinates for the past couple of days. We asked ourselves if there was anything concrete linking the top part with the bottom.’

Chavez pored over the paper. At the top, ‘Skansen’ and ‘Skogskyrkogården’. At the bottom, ‘Slagsta’ and ‘Odenplan metro station’. Between ‘Skansen’ and ‘Skogskyrkogården’, the word ‘rope’ had been written.

‘So the rope was the same?’ Chavez asked. ‘I’ve been looking into it. The combination of colours, red and purple, seems to be quite unusual. But otherwise it seems to be a perfectly normal polypropylene rope, the kind you can buy anywhere. I’ve been in touch with a couple of manufacturers in Sweden and abroad and they said they’d send some samples over. Those should be coming this week.’

‘Eastern Europe?’ Hjelm asked.

‘That too, yeah. Russia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and a couple of others.’

‘Good,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘Then there’s the link between the two squares below, “Slagsta” and “Odenplan metro station”. The fact that someone in one of the rooms in the motel in Slagsta made calls to and received them from the ninja feminist from the metro platform. The link goes both ways, in other words. It was room 225, where the Ukrainians Galina Stenina and Lina Kostenko were staying.’

‘Ninja feminist?’ Hjelm asked.

‘It was a popular term a few years back. Nothing you blokes would understand.’

‘Nina Björk,’ Chavez said nonchalantly. ‘About the construction of femininity. She objects to certain strands of feminism – to difference feminism, those people who think there’s a kind of innate maternity in women or ninja feminists who take man’s weapons and turn them against him.’

Both Hjelm and Holm stared at him in surprise.

‘Clearly it’s not just swimming you’ve taken up,’ Hjelm noted.

‘It’s more of an all-round workout,’ Chavez said. ‘All the muscle groups.’

‘Can we try to concentrate now?’ Kerstin Holm said, turning man’s weapons against him. ‘Some rational thinking please, guys. This is interesting. The last conversation between them came from our ninja feminist, who called Galina Stenina and Lina Kostenko in Slagsta at 22.54 on Wednesday evening. As you might remember, the bullet hit ten-year-old Lisa Altbratt in the arm at 22.14 that same night. It might not be a coincidence.’

‘Or maybe it is,’ Paul Hjelm said reluctantly.

‘Think about it,’ Kerstin continued. ‘Our eight women in the refugee centre had been uneasy for a few weeks. Something happened. Then the first call from the ninja feminist to room 225 – that’s Galina Stenina and Lina Kostenko’s room – was made on the twenty-ninth of April, just about a week before they disappeared. We know she speaks some kind of Slavic language, judging from what Gunnar and Viggo heard on the phone. They were in contact back and forth for five days after that, nine calls in total. The last call was made to Slagsta just before eleven on Wednesday night; it’s the very last registered call. After that, they must’ve discussed it among themselves in rooms 224, 225, 226 and 227 until at least half two in the morning. Then the women disappeared. But a couple of neighbours heard some kind of loud engine sometime between half three and four in the morning. The bin lorry or a bus that’d lost its way, they thought.’

Jorge nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’s the link then,’ he exclaimed.

Paul nodded too. Then he said: ‘Can we work out where our ninja feminist was ringing from? Was it always from Sweden?’

Kerstin leafed through her papers.

‘What I’m reading comes from the four contracts in Slagsta. The list from Telia which Brunte faxed to Jan-Olov on Friday night. You can’t tell where the calls were coming from using this, no – not whether she dialled a country code or anything like that. They’re working on getting a list of calls from the mobile phone. I think it’s possible to get that from the SIM card.’

‘So what does that mean for the link?’ Paul Hjelm asked. ‘That it was the ninja feminist who threw our man to the wolverines?’

‘Could see it that way,’ Kerstin Holm replied.

‘Fine, so there are links in different directions,’ Jorge Chavez said, ‘but the connection to an eighty-eight-year-old professor emeritus, and one who survived Buchenwald at that – it was there, right? – how the hell does that fit?’

‘Buchenwald,’ Hjelm nodded. ‘Yeah, Kerstin, what’s the link there?’

‘It ruins the whole thing,’ Holm said, throwing her pen at the wall.

‘Don’t pick up bad habits like that,’ Chavez said sternly.

‘Who is she then?’ Hjelm asked abruptly. ‘If we’re assuming what we’ve said is right – who is she, the ninja feminist? And what does she have to do with eight prostitutes? Is she busy setting up some kind of mega-brothel somewhere behind the former Iron Curtain?’

‘Of course,’ Kerstin Holm said sourly. ‘An anti-Semitic mega-brothel with a sideline in wolverines, right in the centre of Moscow. It goes without saying.’

‘Don’t get sarcastic on us now,’ Chavez said, feeling like a bachelor again. ‘Let’s save that for later. Should we try linking everything up before we go to the Sheinkman children? Three of them, aren’t there?’

‘Three,’ Hjelm nodded.

‘Seems like a coincidence, one Sheinkman for each of us. Let’s look at each part of your square first. Quadrants, I think they’re called. Everything that needs to be done and everything we’re still waiting for. Quadrant one: “Skansen”. Left to do: identification. We’re waiting for a response from Interpol about the fingerprints. Should come soon. Our man’s in a crime database somewhere, I’d bet my neck on it. The serial number from the silenced Luger has been sent to Interpol as well. We’re also waiting for a response on that. What else?’

‘The metal wire,’ Hjelm said. ‘The technicians collected half a ton of rubbish from the wolverine enclosure. It’s been sent to the national forensic lab. Whoever finishes with their Sheinkman kid first can head over there. Maybe they’ve already found a sharp, rigid metal wire and just haven’t linked it to the wolverine man.’

‘Under way with the rope, like I said,’ Chavez added.

‘And then there’s this “Epivu”,’ said Holm.

‘Oh God, yeah,’ Hjelm said. ‘That word’s been bothering me for a few nights now. I’m getting absolutely nowhere with it.’

‘Summary,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘Fingerprints, pistol, metal wire, rope, “Epivu”. We’re waiting for answers on all of them apart from the last one. We’ll have to find an answer to that ourselves. Write, Paul.’

Paul wrote.

‘Quadrant two,’ Chavez said. ‘The empty one. “Skogskyrkogården”. Slightly inaccurate, since it should really be “Södra Begravningsplatsen”, but we’ll let that slide. Conversations with his relatives are about to take place. What else?’

Hjelm took over. ‘I guess the broken gravestones will be solved just as soon as Andreas Rasmusson starts talking. They probably don’t have a thing to do with the case. A gang of skinheads probably just
happened
to be up to their repulsive business when an even more repulsive event came their way. Rasmusson’s fear is probably the result of him witnessing something more awful than even he could’ve
imagined
.’

‘Two things,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘First: modus operandi. Why such an unusual method of execution? Hanging someone upside down by a rope and pushing a long nail into their head, it’s not the usual.’

‘No,’ said Chavez. ‘It’s not usual.’

‘It suggests something really specific, doesn’t it? That there’s some kind of history. We’ll have to look everywhere we can think of and try to find similar cases. If we don’t turn up any leads, you can hang me up by the scruff of my neck.’

‘We don’t want to do that,’ said Hjelm. ‘But a bottle of whisky would do.’

‘I won’t say no to that,’ Kerstin replied tersely. ‘What kind?’

‘Cragganmore.’

‘OK. Second: the murder scene. Going by Andreas Rasmusson’s reaction, Södra Begravningsplatsen was also the murder scene; I don’t think there’s any doubt he witnessed a murder, nothing less. Sheinkman probably made his way to the scene himself. What was he doing there? Did he have any reason for visiting the cemetery? Was he visiting a grave? Was it purely coincidence that he was strung up right there? Which graves are nearby? Et cetera et cetera.’

‘Good,’ said Hjelm, writing on his sheet of paper. ‘Relatives, modus operandi check, brain surgeon’s verdict on the impact of the metal wire on the brain, skinhead witness, other witnesses, check of the murder scene. What else?’

‘Nothing else,’ Chavez said firmly. ‘Quadrant three: “Slagsta”. Go through the rest of the incoming and outgoing calls to the motel – that’s a whole load. Read through the forensic report on rooms 224, 225, 226 and 227. So far, not much has come up. Throwing money away, calling the technicians out. Must be female logic behind it.’

‘The vehicle,’ Kerstin said, ignoring him completely. ‘If something like a bus passed through little Slagsta at half three in the morning, it shouldn’t have gone unnoticed. I’ll put some uniforms on it.’

‘Great,’ Paul said. ‘Then we’ve got our phantom pimp, right?’

‘Sure, yeah,’ Kerstin replied. ‘The john, aka the manager Jörgen Nilsson, was in touch with a pimp back in November. You don’t want to know what I had to do to get that out of him.’

‘Oh?’ Jorge said, utterly ignored once again.

‘There’s an e-fit being put through the system. Are you writing, Paul?’

‘Non-stop. Phone call check, forensic technicians’ report, vehicle, phantom pimp.’

‘Do our eight runaways have their passports, by the way?’ Jorge asked.

‘No, they were in the manager’s office,’ Kerstin replied.

‘Last quadrant, then,’ said Jorge. ‘The incident in the metro station. Can we get any more out of – what’s his name? – Tamir?’

‘Adib Tamir,’ Paul replied. ‘Gunnar was looking into that and I think he’s squeezed him enough. The main point under “Odenplan metro station” has to be the mobile phone. Hopefully its owner can be identified and we can get a list of calls from it. It’s probably our biggest hope. And I’ve got to admit, I’ve been messing about with that phone – it’s a good old Siemens E10, by the way – wondering how you can handle a phone without leaving a single fingerprint on it.’

‘Then there’s the language expert,’ said Kerstin, ‘who has the dubious honour of discussing phonetics and Slavic languages with Gunnar, Viggo and a police assistant called Andersson.’

‘Do we have anything else?’ Paul asked, scribbling as though his life depended on it. ‘Phone, list of calls, language expert.’

‘I’m wondering what we can get out of our ninja feminist’s behaviour on the platform,’ Jorge Chavez said. ‘It all seems so neat. Bish, bosh and the people attacking her are gone. But then she leaves the phone behind. What happened? True, she was attacked by Hamid – he was waving a knife and everything – but still. Did she really have to carry him like a wheelbarrow across the platform and hold him out in front of the train? Wouldn’t it have been enough to give him another kick in the face? He must’ve been groggy already. What happened? Pure sadism?’

‘I actually think,’ Kerstin said, ‘that she was busy calculating. She was counting on the phone being smashed to pieces. It’s a miracle it wasn’t. According to the autopsy report, both arms went right under the train and were ripped clean off, bouncing along beneath the carriages. The fingers were like a shield for the phone, they stopped it from breaking. There’s not a scratch on it.’

‘Siemens quality,’ said Hjelm. ‘Just think of the ovens.’

‘What ovens?’

‘The crematorium ovens in the Nazi concentration camps. They were Siemens.’

There was a moment of silence. A ghost passed through the room. The ghost of Professor Emeritus Leonard Sheinkman. It was as though he wanted something.

They shuddered.

‘There’s one thing we’ve forgotten,’ Paul Hjelm said after a moment, glancing down at his extensive diagram.

‘What’s that then?’ two hopeful voices asked simultaneously.

‘Isn’t this Hultin’s job?’

IT WAS SUNDAY
afternoon and three different cars were en route to three different addresses. They had drawn lots to decide which. ‘Channa Nordin-Sheinkman, Kungsholmen’ was written on the scrap of paper Chavez had picked; Holm’s read ‘David Sheinkman, Näsbypark’, and ‘Harald Sheinkman, Tyresö’ was printed on Hjelm’s. The three names belonged to the late professor’s three children. Given that he had been eighty-eight when he died, not arriving in Sweden before 1945 when he was thirty-three, that put the children around the fifty mark. As much as ten years older than Hjelm himself.

Only once he was on the way to Tyresö did he realise that the address to which he was heading – a street called Bofinksvägen in a place called Nytorp – was identical to the address listed for Leonard Sheinkman in the telephone directory.

The old man must have been living with his eldest son.

Paul Hjelm ploughed on through the Sunday traffic on Tyresövägen and felt a certain relief at not having to be the bearer of bad news; Sheinkman’s son could hardly have missed hearing about his father’s awful death by now – it had been all over the papers and television for the past twenty-four hours. Hjelm just hoped that someone from the local police had stopped by to break the news before that.