Marked for Life (10 page)

“I don't think I ever really knew him. He was always absent in some way. He always has been... I knew that something was wrong. I knew it when he wanted me to have a pillow or something over my face when we had sex. He insisted, otherwise he would feel sick to his stomach, he said.”

She sobbed.

“That was at the beginning, when we were just married. He did such strange things. I could wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be just laying there, staring at my breasts. And when he saw I'd woken up, he'd shout at me that I was a stupid fucking cunt and then he pushed in his...his...”

Kerstin couldn't get the words out. She wiped the snot from her nose on her sleeve.

“He pushed his penis so far down my throat that I'd choke and couldn't breathe. When he was finished, he said I was disgusting, that he had to go and wash himself after having been with his ugly wife.”

Kerstin cried for a while, then eventually calmed down. She was silent for a while, then she started to carry on again.

“He never really wanted to sleep with me. But I thought it would get better. I told myself someday everything would get better, that it was all simply too much for him, his work I mean, and that I should feel sorry for him. But then he started to have sex with other women...and girls. He started... They must have been afraid, they must have been afraid of him. I just don't understand how he could, I...”

She cried straight out.

“He told me once how one woman screamed when he raped her on the floor. How the panic in her eyes grew when he penetrated her. How he laughed when she started to bleed from her behind. And then he'd... She was bleeding...and he...down her throat...”

Kerstin covered her face with her hands and put her head on the table.

“Oh God...” she cried.

Henrik could still hear her crying although he was now alone in the room. He looked out of the window and stared at the pale gray light. Then he got up. In half an hour, he had to be in the conference room with the team. He had to compose himself.

* * *

Henrik Levin walked slowly up the flights of stairs at the police headquarters and continued down the long and empty corridor on floor three to the conference room. He didn't look at the mail cubbies or the paintings, nor did he look in through the open office doors. He kept his gaze directed downward toward the floor and a little in front of him.

Gunnar Öhrn noted Henrik's expression and asked if he wanted to delay the briefing for an hour. But Henrik insisted on reviewing with the team the most important parts of his last interview with Kerstin. He remained standing in front of the table and his colleagues.

“Threatening letters were directed at Hans Juhlén,” he began. “Hans Juhlén had sexually abused several female asylum seekers, and in return they were promised permanent residence permits. But they were never granted said permits. On one occasion he treated a young girl extremely badly, and she decided to tell her brother about him. When the first letter arrived, Kerstin realized it was written by the brother. She knew because Hans Juhlén was in the habit of boasting about his so-called conquests. About how naive the girls were. About how they had cried when he had forced them to have sex.”

Anneli Lindgren felt so uncomfortable hearing this information she was squirming by the time Henrik took a short break. Then he continued.

“Kerstin made sure that Hans never saw the letters. It was she who had opened them first. She had considered going to the police to bring an end to the rapes. The only right decision would have been to get divorced, but she didn't know who she would be without her husband. Who would look after her? She didn't have any money of her own, no way to support herself. And if the story got out, it would be the end of her husband's career and then she, too, wouldn't have any money to live on. Besides, everybody would scorn her for having been married to a rapist. So she had decided to hide the letters and pay. For silence,” said Henrik.

“How can you protect somebody who treats you so badly?” said Mia.

“I don't know. Hans Juhlén was really a nasty bastard. According to Kerstin, he more or less bullied her. It all started twenty years ago when he found out that she could never have a child. He reminded her of that every day. He crushed her.”

“And she let him do it?”

“Yes.”

“But didn't he discover that the money had been withdrawn from the account?” said Gunnar.

“Oh yes. He had asked her about the withdrawals, but Kerstin lied and said they were for purchases for their home or for a bill or a repair that must be paid. He had gotten angry, a big argument followed and he hit her. But she never changed her story. And after a while, even though her excuses never made sense, he lost interest in it and in his wife. In any event she says he stopped asking her about it,” said Henrik.

“Who did the threatening letters come from?” said Mia.

“A Yusef Abrham from Ethiopia. He lives in Hageby and he shares a flat with his sister. That was why Kerstin always withdrew the money there. We'll talk to him straight after this meeting. Is it okay if I...” Henrik pointed at an empty chair.

“Of course, sit down,” said Gunnar, who was used to Henrik's tactfulness. Even so, Gunnar added: “You don't need to ask permission to do that, surely?”

“No, you can just bloody well sit down,” said Mia.

Henrik pulled out the chair and sat down. He immediately opened a bottle of mineral water and poured half the contents into a glass and drank it. The bubbles tickled his palate.

Jana Berzelius had been sitting in silence, observing, at the short end of the table.

She crossed her legs and said, “Has Kerstin confessed to anything else?”

Henrik shook his head.

“We still don't have anything concrete that links her to the murder, which means I must let her go.”

“Kerstin did of course have every reason to want to see her husband dead, given how he had treated her. They might well have argued and she pulled out a gun and shot him,” she said.

“But the gun? Where would she have gotten that from? And after shooting him, would she have given it to a child who climbed out through the window? And who would that child have been?” said Henrik.

“I don't know. Think of something yourself then!” Mia hissed.

Henrik gave her a tired look.

“Okay, now let's calm down. Jana's right, we have to release Kerstin, at least for now,” said Gunnar.

“What about Lasse Johansson?” said Jana.

“He's of no interest any longer, his alibi has been confirmed by several people.”

“So at the moment all we have is the boy and this Yusef Abrham?”

“And whatever is on Hans Juhlén's computer,” said Gunnar.

“Right,” said Ola Söderström. He shifted his weight on the chair. “It's going slowly but I've checked the hard drive. The strange, or rather revealing, thing is that someone tried to delete it.”

“Delete it?” said Mia. “But you can retrieve that, can't you?”

“Absolutely, you can. Documents and cookie files can be recovered, that's no problem. As long as they haven't been bombarded with EMP.”

Ola Söderström saw the questioning expressions of the team.

“That's electromagnetic pulse. It knocks everything out. There are firms that do that.”

“There must have been something he wanted to hide,” said Henrik.

“Perhaps. We'll have to see what I can get out of it.”

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

“I TOLD YOU IT WAS DIRTY.”

Per Åström gave Jana Berzelius a wide smile.

They happened to have bumped into each other outside the prosecution authority's office, decided to skip the office coffee and go to the bakery café instead. The walk there had taken five minutes and luckily there was no line at the counter. Jana wondered whether she was hungry enough for a ham-and-cheddar on sourdough. In the end they had each ordered a cup of coffee and scones with jam, and then gone and sat beside the window.

The interior was typical of modern Scandinavian design, and it felt a bit like sitting in a hotel lobby. Black leather chairs were squeezed into round oval oak tables. Armchairs with high backs stood in pairs in the corners. Lamps of different sizes in black-and-red cloth hung from the ceiling, and a pleasant aroma of newly baked bread permeated the room.

“I regret I said anything to you about the investigation,” Jana said to Per.

She had told him in confidence about Hans Juhlén's darker side.

“Actually it's rather fascinating. After all, just think what it'll be like when the media get wind of the fact that the boss at the Migration Board has abused asylum-seeking women and girls,” Per said and smiled.

“If you don't keep your voice down, the papers will find out extremely quickly.”

“Sorry.”

“It's a complicated investigation.”

“But tell me more?”

“Not a word to anyone about what I say.” Jana gave Per a piercing look. “Okay?”

“I promise.”

“Now listen. Hans Juhlén was shot. In his house the police find handprints with fingerprints from a child. The same child is found shot to death with a gun that turns out to be the same type of gun that killed Hans Juhlén. And then this business with the girls...”

“The dirty...”

“Call it what you like. But can you explain to me how it all fits together?”

“No.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

Jana lifted the coffee cup up to her lips. She looked at Per, at his stylish shirt and blazer and trim-fitting trousers. So well dressed. Per had been single for as long as she could remember. He had a couple of longish relationships behind him but didn't really feel comfortable living with anyone.

“Better alone on your own, than alone in a relationship,” he had said a couple of years ago.

Jana knew that his work and his commitment to working with adolescents took up all his time. It was not in her interest to try to interfere with anybody's life. Not even Per's.

Even though the conditions at times might have been right, things had never clicked between them. For Jana, Per was merely a friend and a colleague. Nothing more.

“I need your help,” said Jana and put her coffee cup on the table.

“But I don't know how everything fits together,” said Per.

“I don't mean with the investigation. I need to switch work days with you.”

“Why?”

“Dinner with Mother and Father on Tuesday, the first of May holiday.”

Per angled his head to one side and whistled.

“Fine, that's fine.”

“I'll give you a nice bottle of wine as compensation. Red or white?”

“Neither. I'll do it for you if you tell me more details about that filthy man Hans. I'm thinking of selling the story myself. I can get a bundle for it!”

“You're just hopeless.”

Jana forced a smile and took a bite of her scone.

* * *

Makda Abrham saw them coming from the kitchen window. She knew right away it was about that man at the Migration Board. She had anticipated that this day would come when she would be forced to tell them all about the evil that she had been subjected to.

The worry grew in her tummy and when she opened the door the pressure was so hard on her diaphragm that she had to support herself against the wall. She couldn't really grasp the names of the police officers and she didn't even look at the ID cards they showed.

“We're looking for Yusef Abrham,” said Henrik and put his ID away. He studied the woman in front of him. Young, perhaps twenty, dark eyes, slim face, long hair, a cloth bracelet and a sweater with a low neckline.

“Why?” she said.

“Is he at home?” said Henrik.

“Me...sister. Why?”

Makda found it hard to formulate the words. Why her brother? Weren't they going to talk with her? Why did they want to talk with Yusef?

She swept her dark hair behind her ear and revealed a long row of pearls on her earlobe.

“We just want to talk with him about Hans Juhlén.”

The policeman said his name.

The name of the filth.

Of the revolting man whom she hated above all else.

“Yusef? Police!” Makda called out into the flat.

She stepped aside and let Henrik and Mia enter the ground-floor apartment, and then she moved to the left. She knocked carefully on a closed door.

Henrik and Mia waited in the hall.

There was a traditional Swedish woven mat on the hall floor and an empty yellow hat rack on the wall. On the floor were three pairs of shoes, two of them white and presumably newly purchased sneakers. They were of a well-known brand and Henrik knew that they were expensive. Otherwise there was nothing in the hall, no drawers, no pictures or anything to sit on.

Makda knocked again on the closed door and said something in a language that Mia thought sounded like Tigrin.

She smiled at the police officers as a sort of apology, and knocked again.

In the hallway, Henrik and Mia decided to step in and help Makda, who seemed to be growing more and more anxious. They walked into the apartment and stood beside her at the bedroom door. From there they could look right into the kitchen, which had its own back door. A fan was on and an ashtray on the table was full of cigarette butts. In the other direction was a bathroom, a second bedroom and a living room. There was almost no furniture at all.

“Yusef, open the door. We just want to talk with you a little.”

Henrik banged on the bedroom door but there was no answer.

“Open the door now!”

He banged harder. Several times.

Then he heard a creaking sound from inside the room.

“What was that?” Mia wondered out loud, having also reacted to the creaking sound.

“It sounded like a window that...”

That very same moment she caught sight through the kitchen window of a dark-skinned, barefoot man moving quickly through the backyard.

“Damn!” Mia shouted and ran to the back door and into the yard.

Henrik came after her.

Mia saw how the man running ahead of her forced his way through some bushes and disappeared from view.

“Stop!”

Mia ran after him through the bushes just in time to see him veer off into a playground. In a few quick strides he crossed the sand pit and jumped over the fence beside the swings. Mia was not far behind. She shouted to the man again to halt. She jumped over the fence and followed him into a narrow bicycle path, not too many meters behind. She would soon catch up. Nobody could beat her.

Nobody.

Mia tensed her muscles and closed the gap. By the time they reached the end of the path, she had caught up and felled him with a well-directed tackle. They both rolled over in the snow. Mia quickly got a firm hold of the man's left arm as he lay facedown on the ground beneath her and she bent it up onto his back. Then she caught her breath.

Henrik came running up, pulled out a pair of handcuffs and locked the man's arms behind his back. He forced him up onto his feet and showed his ID card before leading the man to the car.

Makda had also run after them but had given up in the playground. When she saw her brother come back between the police officers in handcuffs, she slapped her hands over her mouth and shook her head. She went up to her brother and shouted loudly and accusingly at him in Tigrin as she gripped his neck.

Mia pulled her away.

“We're just going to talk with him,” said Mia in a calming voice and led her away to the swings.

“He needs to come with us to the station. Don't worry.”

Mia stopped, put both her hands on Makda's shoulders and looked her in the eye.

“Now listen to me. We will be talking with you, too, about what has happened. About what was done to you. I'll send a woman who knows your language and who you can talk with privately.”

Makda couldn't understand what the woman police officer had said. But she could see in the woman's eyes that it was something good. She nodded. Mia smiled and left the playground. Makda didn't know where she should go. So she just stayed there.

Anxious.

And completely lost.

* * *

They had hardly sat down in the station before Yusef Abrham claimed, in poor English, that he didn't know a word of Swedish. Henrik Levin and Mia Bolander had struggled for more than forty minutes to get hold of an interpreter. When the interpreter finally came, Yusef claimed he couldn't talk because he had a throat infection. That was when Mia lost her temper. She threw the threatening letters down onto the table and let fly a long harangue with expletives that the interpreter then repeated in Tigrin but without the same anger. Yusef just glared at her, scornfully.

After a few more expletives from Mia, he sighed loudly and finally started to talk about Hans Juhlén. About how Hans had abused his sister. One cold January evening Juhlén had come to the apartment and asked to be let in to speak with Makda about her residence permit.

“She was alone at home, she didn't want to let him in, but he had forced his way in and raped her in the hall,” said Yusef. “And when I came home, she was in her room sobbing. I wanted to help her, but she told me not to say anything to anybody about what had happened.”

He rolled his eyes and said that his sister's naive hope of getting a residence permit meant that she continued to open the door every time Hans Juhlén rang the bell.

Yusef had kept his word about keeping the sexual encounters secret, but his suspicion that Juhlén had lied about his sister's residence permit had been gnawing at him.

“Juhlén seemed to be an idiot, and you shouldn't trust idiots.”

When three months had passed and Makda still hadn't received a positive answer from the Migration Board, Yusef decided to use the same blackmail techniques as Juhlén. But instead of sex, he used money. One time he hid and documented Juhlén's visit and his degrading act with his cell phone. Afterwards, he sat down and wrote the first threatening letter and mailed it to Juhlén's wife. A couple of weeks later he was contacted by Kerstin Juhlén. She had beseeched him to withdraw the threat, but Yusef refused.

“He abused my sister, so I felt I could abuse him. And if his wife didn't pay, I would leak the photos to the media!”

Kerstin realized he was serious and a day later she delivered the money.

“But I didn't say anything to Makda—I kept the money for myself. So Makda knows nothing of my blackmail scheme. If my sister wanted to fuck him for nothing, then she could just go ahead.”

“So you wrote the threatening letters yourself?” Henrik asked.

“Yes.”

“So you do know Swedish?”

Yusef smirked.

After that, he answered all the questions in fluent Swedish.

Yusef had been living in Sweden for a year and a half and had learned the language fairly quickly. He was born in Eritrea and grew up there, but had left the country on account of the troubles with Ethiopia.

“We were lucky,” he said. “Lucky that we could make our way here. That we survived the whole journey. That we didn't end up in a ghost container.”

“What do you mean by ghost container?” said Henrik.

“It's one of the common ways of traveling to a new country these days and it isn't safe. Especially not for illegal refugees. You know, many die on the way. Sometimes they all die. That's happened in Afghanistan, Ireland, Thailand. Even here.”

“Here?” said Henrik.

“Yes.”

“In Sweden?”

“Yes.”

“That's strange. Wouldn't we know if that were the case?” asked Mia.

“You don't see everything that happens. Anyway...my parents are going to come here too,” said Yusef.

“When?” said Henrik.

“Next year I think. It's dangerous to stay in Eritrea.”

“Indeed,” said Henrik. “But back to the threatening letters. Have you told anybody about them?”

Yusef shook his head no.

“You know you have committed a crime?” said Mia.

“It is only a letter, not a real threat.”

“Oh yes, it is. And making threats against people is a very serious crime in this country. You will probably end up in prison for it,” said Mia.

“It was worth it,” he said.

Yusef didn't protest when the policemen
took him away to a cell. He walked slowly and seemed relaxed, as if he were relieved at having told the truth.

* * *

Ola Söderström stared at the computer screen, the only source of light in the room. He was going through the files he had found on Hans Juhlén's computer. Now and then you could hear the muffled sound of the lift going from floor to floor. The ceiling fans hissed and the hard drive made an angry buzzing sound as he hunted down the deleted files. But then it went silent. Ola had gone through everything.

Now we'll see
, he thought. He knew there must be something interesting somewhere. There always was. In every computer. But you had to look in the right place. Computers hid more than people knew, and often you had to search through the files several times to uncover everything, or use special software.

He started by looking through Hans Juhlén's cookie folder to see which sites he had visited. Headlines from the national newspapers showed up, and Ola glanced at the articles about the Migration Board. Most of them were about the board's illegal contracts with landlords and other suppliers of housing. A series of reports questioned whether management knew about the principle of public access to official records, and one journalist had investigated the government procurement processes at the board and for which Juhlén was ultimately responsible. The board was severely criticized and had often been asked why it took so long to improve their routines when it came to finding and paying for accommodations for asylum seekers. Hans was quoted as saying that there was “a difference between buying a photocopier and buying accommodation.”