Marked for Life (29 page)

“Sending a text wasn't the smartest thing to do,” Danilo went on.

“Why not? Are you hiding from somebody?” said Jana.

“No, but you are.”

“The police can't trace a prepaid SIM.”

“You never know.”

They both fell silent and looked at each other from top to toe. Danilo broke the silence after a few moments.

“So he's been caught, then?”

“Yes. Or perhaps...”

“What do you mean?”

“Come in and I'll tell you.”

CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO

HENRIK LEVIN WOKE
suddenly. He had had a short snooze. And that was hardly surprising. The day's events had demanded total concentration and he wasn't only exhausted mentally, his body too was aching with tiredness.

Henrik looked up from the pillow. On his stomach lay a book about a teddy bear. Vilma lay on his arm. Her little body was quite still. Felix lay close to him on the other side. He was breathing deeply. Henrik tried as carefully as he could to get his arm out from under Vilma, but she moved and pushed even closer. Henrik looked at his daughter's sleeping face. He pressed his nose against hers and then freed his arm. Felix didn't move a muscle when the other arm, under him, disappeared too. In his sleep, he opened his mouth out wide like a baby bird in a nest. Henrik stroked the boy's cheek. Then he delicately started to maneuver himself out from the narrow bed and after a couple of attempts he had to clamber over the high edge of the frame. The heat from the children's bodies had made him sweaty. He pulled the sticky shirt away from his skin and decided that the children could stay on in the same bed for the night.

He turned off the moon-shaped bedside light and quietly closed the door to Felix's room.

It took him fifteen minutes to brush his teeth, use floss and then rinse with exactly the recommended amount of mouth-rinse. He studied his face in the mirror and noticed that another couple of hairs on his left temple had turned gray. But he didn't bother to remove them. Was too tired for that. So he left the bathroom and went into the bedroom.

The TV had been turned off. Emma lay in bed in a pink T-shirt with the covers up to her waist, deeply involved in a book. Henrik got undressed, folded his clothes and put them on the chair next to his side of the bed. With a yawn, he sunk down with his head on the pillow, put one arm under his head and looked up at the ceiling. The other arm was under the covers and his hand felt its way into his underpants and grasped his intimate bits. As if to make them comfortable.

Emma put her book down and looked at him. He felt her gaze. It hit him like an electric prod.

“What is it?” he said.

She didn't answer.

He pulled his hand out from his pants and lay on his side next to her.

“Well, we haven't...” she started.

“What haven't we?”

“Had sex so much lately.”

“No.”

“And it isn't because of you.”

“Okay?”

“It's because of me.”

“But it doesn't matter,” said Henrik and immediately wondered why on earth he had said that. It certainly did matter. It mattered an awful lot. In fact it was everything.

She leaned forward and gave him a long kiss. He responded likewise. They kissed again. A bit predictable one might say. His hand on her breast. Her hands on his back. She scratched him a little. Then harder and Henrik got the feeling that this was an invitation. At last, he thought, and pulled Emma closer to him. But then he remembered the words she had only just a few moments earlier uttered. That there was something that had made her not want to as much as before. With a gentle hand he pushed her away. She looked at him with her big blue eyes and her gaze was full of desire.

“I'm just wondering what the reason was,” said Henrik. “You said it was because of you.”

Emma smiled and the lines of laughter around her eyes showed up immediately. He loved every one of them.

Then she bit her lip, still with the smile there. She had a mischievous look. Her fingers played over the sheet and drew an invisible heart.

Afterwards he had wanted to freeze that moment. He would have given anything for time to have stood still, just there and then. Because she looked so happy.

Then she said it.

“I'm pregnant.”

He immediately regretted having asked. Why hadn't he just given his desire a free rein, and they could have got on with it? Why had he been so stupid and asked?

Emma cast herself over him.

“Isn't it wonderful?”

“Yes.”

“It is, isn't it?”

“Yes, really.”

“Are you pleased?”

“Well, yes. I'm pleased.”

“I hadn't wanted to say anything. You've been so busy at work and there simply wasn't a good occasion. Until now.”

Henrik didn't move. He lay there under Emma, as if he had turned into stone. She moved slowly, rubbing her body against his. His thoughts spun around and around: pregnant? Pregnant! Now there would be no more sex at all. Not for nine months. That's what it had been like when she was pregnant with Felix and Vilma. Then he hadn't wanted to at all. It hadn't felt right to do it with Emma when she had a baby in her tummy. And now she had one again.

A baby.

In her tummy.

Yet again, he pushed her away.

“What's the matter,” she said. “Don't you want to?”

“No,” he answered curtly and held up his arm against her. “Come on, lie down here.”

She looked at him with surprise.

“Come on,” he said. “I just want to hold you a while.”

She lay her head on his chest. He let his arm sink down onto her shoulders.

“So you're pregnant.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Great. Really great.”

Emma didn't answer.

Henrik knew that she was disappointed that they weren't having sex. Now she could presumably feel what he had felt every time she hadn't wanted to. Now the roles were reversed, he thought, before he closed his eyes. He wasn't going to fall asleep, he knew that. And he was right.

He didn't get any sleep at all that night.

* * *

“So he's going to be moved tomorrow,” Danilo repeated. He stood in the middle of Jana's living room with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on a point far away outside the window.

She sat on the couch with her hands cupping a glass of water. It had taken her twenty minutes to tell Danilo what had happened. The whole time, he had stood up in the same position.

“Where is he going to be moved to?” he said. “Do you know?”

“No, I've no idea,” said Jana.

Danilo paced back and forth over the floor.

“What a fucking mess,” he said.

“What should we do?”

Danilo was silent, pacing all the faster. Then he suddenly stopped and looked at Jana.

“So you've no idea about where they're going to put him?” he said.

“No, like I said. It's confidential,” said Jana.

“Then there's only one way to find out.”

“What's that?”

“With a tracking device.”

“That's a good plan. Really.”

“I'm serious. A GPS tracker is the only alternative.”

“Or we could simply follow the police cars? What do you think about that? A bit simpler perhaps?”

“And risk being seen? I don't think so. With a tracker we can follow them from a distance.”

“But we still risk being discovered.”

“Not if we do it right.”

“How do we get hold of a tracker?”

“I'll fix it.”

“How?”

“Trust me.”

“But haven't you forgotten an important detail? Like that Gavril is locked up? In the detention center? How do you think you're going to install a tracker on him?”

Danilo sat down beside Jana.

“I'm not going to do it,” he said.

“You're not?”

“There's only one person who can fasten it on him. One who can always get inside the detention center. One who the police will never suspect.”

“Who is that?”

“You.”

CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE

Tuesday, May 1

THE CORRIDOR SEEMED
to go on forever. Her heels echoed all around her. To maintain her focus, she counted her steps. She had been counting ever since she stepped out of the elevator on the floor with the detention center, and now she was up to fifty-seven. She looked at her Rolex.

08:40.

She fixed her gaze on the door and squeezed the handle of her briefcase. Seventy-two steps in all, she thought as she put her briefcase down on the floor. She rang the bell to be let in and then heard a voice telling her to say her name to the microphone on the wall.

“Jana Berzelius, the prosecutor's office. I'm going to have a talk with my client, Lena Wikström,” she said.

The door opened and Jana picked up her briefcase and went inside. A warder with a name tag that said Bengt Dansson and with a neck that was barely visible and earlobes big as wings smirked a stupid smile of recognition when she approached him.

Bengt looked at her identity card and smiled even wider when he handed it back to her, which made his chin pour out over his collar.

“A quick search too,” he said.

Jana stretched out her arms and felt Bengt's hands move from her armpits down over her ribs and hips.

He panted when he crouched down in front of her and she rolled her eyes in irritation when he continued to search her from her hips down her legs.

“Which do you prefer? Metal detector or a body search?” he said and looked up at her with a desirous gaze.

“What do you mean?” said Jana.

“That you can choose. Detector or naked.”

“You're joking, aren't you?”

“You can't be too careful when it comes to security.”

Jana was speechless.

Bengt broke out into such loud laughter that his cheeks bobbed up and down. He put one hand on his knee and pushed himself up but couldn't stop laughing.

“Ha, ha, ha, haaa! You should have seen your face!”

“Very funny,” she said and clutched her briefcase.

“You just...errr...” he said and showed a face that looked like a cross-eyed seal.

She felt a strong desire to thump him right in his face but reminded herself that the detention center was an unsuitable place to practice violence.

Bengt dried his tears. He shook his head and laughed out loud yet again.

“If you'll excuse me, I am in a bit of a hurry. You see, I have a job to do. Not play silly games,” she said.

Bengt became quiet, cleared his throat and opened the door for her.

“You can enter,” he said.

She stepped into the detention center corridor and nodded to the warder in the security office. He nodded back and then turned his attention to one of the three computer screens on the desk in front of him. Two warders were talking in a low voice next to the office. She couldn't help wondering if they were the ones who had been entrusted with fetching Gavril from his cell. She looked at her watch again.

08:45.

Fifteen minutes to go before he was to be moved. Her heart started beating a bit faster.

Bengt locked the door and led the way down the corridor which was lit up by strong fluorescent lamps in the ceiling. A bunch of keys rattled noisily with every step he took. The walls were painted a light apricot color and the linoleum floor was a weak mint-green. They passed a couple of detention cells, the doors white and reinforced with a wide band of steel at the bottom. They were all numbered.

At door number eight, Bengt stopped and lifted up the bunch of keys on the chain hanging from his belt. He looked for the right key, then he looked up at Jana again, laughed quietly and shook his head again. Then he unlocked the door and let her in. Before she went inside, she saw the two warders shake hands with two darkly dressed policemen and she immediately realized that the move would take place shortly.

“Stay outside,” she said to Bengt. “This won't take long.”

Then she stepped into the cell and heard the door shut behind her.

“What are you doing here?”

Jana gave a start when she heard Lena Wikström's rasping voice. She was sitting on the bunk bed with her legs pulled up to her chin. The sheet hung over the edge down onto the floor. She was dressed in dark green trousers and a dark green shirt. Barefoot. Her eyes were tired. The rings under them were wide and dark. Her hair was uncombed.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed quietly yet again. “Are you here to threaten me again?”

“No,” said Jana. “I am not here to threaten you. I am here for a totally different purpose and I need your help.”

“I'm not going to help with anything.”

“You already have. By being here.”

Lena didn't understand. And she couldn't be bothered to try to understand either.

“How much longer will it be?”

“What do you mean?”

Jana put her briefcase down on the floor.

“Until you lock me up?”

“I might remind you that you already are imprisoned.”

“But this isn't for real. This is just a stage. A stop on the way.”

“Two more days before the trial,” Jana answered, and looked at her watch again.

08:52.

She crouched down in front of her briefcase, opened it and stuck her hands inside to hide them. She pulled off her Rolex and opened the back of the watch case. With her long nails she loosened a little tracking device that was in there, and then put the casing back on again. She quickly put the watch back on her wrist and with the tracker in one hand she closed the briefcase with the other.

“So in two days it will come to an end,” said Lena almost inaudibly.

But Jana heard the faint words. She stopped just as she was going to get up. Lena has capitulated, she thought. She has given up.

“Yes, then it will come to an end.”

Lena turned white in the face.

“Then it will be over,” Jana went on.

“I want it to be over,” said Lena and looked down at her hands.

She suddenly looked very small, slumped down and gray.

“I don't think I can take any more of this. I want to get away from here.”

“You are here to stay.”

“I don't want to be stuck in prison. I'd rather die. Please kill me! I know you can. Kill me!”

“Shut up!”

“I can't live like this. I must get away.”

Jana stood up and looked at her watch.

08:59.

It was time. Now she would do it. She raised her hand to knock on the door but stopped when she heard Lena's voice.

“Please,” she squeaked. “Help me...”

Jana sighed. She thought a few seconds before walking across to where Lena was sitting. She got hold of the sheet, bit a hole in the cloth and then tore off a long strip. She put it into Lena's hand.

“You can help yourself,” she said.

Then she knocked hard on the door which was immediately opened by Bengt. She remained standing in the doorway a few moments. Waiting for the right opportunity.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw them approaching: the wardens, the policemen and then Gavril between them. Just as they passed her, she took a step forward and pretended to slip. She swung the briefcase, let one leg give way and affected to cry out. When she fell onto the floor her hand grasped Gavril's leg and quick as a flash she pressed the tracker on his pants pocket.

Bengt rushed up to help her up.

“Oh, sorry,” she mumbled. “It's my heels. They are new.”

The warders looked at her in surprise. The policemen almost disapprovingly. And Gavril, he smiled.

Jana couldn't help look at him. However much she tried to persuade herself to stop staring, she couldn't help it. Her heart pounded. She was so close to him but still so far away. Her hatred grew with every breath she took. Most of all she would have liked to have killed him straightaway. Most of all she wanted to stick a knife into his body, time and time again. He should die.

Die.

Die.

Die.

“You ought to be careful, little miss,” he said with a smirk before he was taken along the corridor between the warders and the policemen.

You too
, Jana thought.

You ought to be very, very careful.

* * *

“You do know what you're getting yourself into?” Danilo said from the passenger seat. In his hand he held a phone that showed Gavril's position on a map. On the floor of the car, between his legs, he had put a backpack.

Jana had her eyes glued to the road. She had one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on the support in the door. The seat was soft and upholstered in the black Volvo S60 that Danilo had borrowed from a friend or rented at short notice from a local firm. She didn't care which. The main thing was that she didn't have to arrange a car and thereby risk being traced to it should there be a search later.

There was a pungent smell of disinfectant inside the car. They were outside the small town of Trosa. There wasn't much traffic and they were going quite fast.

“I know very well what I'm getting myself into,” Jana answered, resolutely.

Never in all her life had she been so certain of anything, as she was now. Her entire body burned with desire to put Gavril against the wall—confront him. Then she would repay the wrong he had done to her. She would retaliate for his having killed her parents. And other parents. And their children. She would avenge their deaths if it was the last thing she did. There was no possibility to excuse his ill deeds, to move on and leave him be.

“You're risking everything. What if you get caught?”

She didn't answer.

She was well aware that the stakes were the very highest. She was staking all of her life on getting revenge. Despite that, there was nothing that could stop her now.

“Are you afraid?”

“I stopped being afraid when I was seven years old,” Jana answered briefly.

Danilo didn't ask any more and silence enveloped them. All that could be heard was the sound of the tires on the asphalt.

They sat next to each other without uttering a sound the entire rest of the drive. The tracker showed them the way via Järna to Nykvarn. After a twenty-minute drive Danilo straightened up.

“They've stopped,” he said.

She slowed down. There was forest on all sides.

“How far away are they from here?”

“Two, perhaps three hundred meters,” Danilo answered. “We'll go by foot the last bit so that they do not hear us.”

“Where have they taken him?”

“We'll have to find out.”

Fifty meters down a gravel road they found a discreet place to park the car. Jana turned off the engine and looked at Danilo who grasped the backpack.

“Perhaps it would be right to thank you,” she said. “For helping me.”

“Thank me later,” he answered, and climbed out of the car.

* * *

The high gates were opened slowly.

A uniformed police officer waved with one arm and a police car slowly drove into the gravel drive. After it came a black minibus with tinted windows and finally yet another police car.

Phobos had butterflies in his tummy. He would get a new home. He looked quickly up at Papa who sat next to him on the backseat and then turned his head toward the large white house that towered up in front of them. A wall went all round it with bushes along the side. There were several scraggly trees and a fountain in the form of a mermaid where the rippling water had at some time formed brown lines on the light ceramic surface. Now the fountain was turned off. And ugly.

The house resembled a country mansion with two storeys and large windows. The front door was red and the façade was well lit-up by strong spotlights as well as weaker wall lamps. And there were pillars too. With cameras.

Wow, what a place.

Phobos squeezed the brown teddy bear he had in his lap. He was pleased with it. This was the first time Papa had given him a present. But he was absolutely not allowed to show he was pleased, that's what Papa had said. No smile or anything silly. He wasn't allowed to talk about the teddy bear either, only hug it. Like it. Like ordinary little boys did.

Now the house was close and the car drove up to the front door and stopped. Two uniformed policemen came forward and opened the car doors. Phobos climbed out on one side, Papa on the other.

“Shall we check the son too?” one of the policemen called to the other who was busy frisking Papa.

“No, he's only a kid,” came the answer.

“Come along here,” said the policeman to Phobos and led him toward the front door.

The chilly air pinched his cheeks. He walked with small steps beside the policeman, the whole time looking expectantly at what was to be his new home.

Phobos had butterflies again. He squeezed the teddy bear hard, and even though the teddy was well padded he could feel the hard steel inside it.

* * *

Jana stood leaning with her back against the high wall that ran around the house. The grass under her was damp. She felt how the cold found its way in through her tight black sweater. On her legs she was also wearing black and close-fitting leggings. She had chosen a pair of lightweight shoes, running type, for her feet.

Danilo was also wearing dark clothes with a large hood. He crouched down and dug out a Sig Sauer from his backpack. Danilo checked it carefully, then pulled out a silencer and screwed it onto the pipe with a practiced hand.

“You've still got the technique,” said Jana.

Danilo didn't answer. He handed the gun over to her.

“I don't need a pistol,” she said.

“What are you going to kill him with then? Your hands?”

“I prefer a knife.”

“Believe me, you're going to need this. If nothing else, to get inside the house.”

“Where did you get it from?”

“Contacts,” Danilo answered briefly.

He put his hand into his backpack again and pulled out yet another pistol. This one too with a silencer. A Glock.