Stalker (15 page)

The psychedelic room at the Birger Jarl Hotel that Linda Bergman described is actually known as ‘the Retro Room’, and can be booked just like any other room.

The hotel underwent a complete renovation at the turn of the millennium. All the rooms were gutted and the décor completely changed. Once the workmen had left, it turned out that room 247 had been forgotten.

The room had somehow been ignored during every refurbishment since the hotel was built in 1974.

It’s still intact, like a small time-capsule from a bygone age.

In 2013 a murder was committed at the hotel, after a sofa in room 247 was changed. Naturally, everyone claims that there was no connection between the two events, but now the staff refuse to make any adjustments to the layout of the room.

Adam has been sitting in his car in front of the old electricity works for five hours, watching the entrance to the hotel. Joona has been standing outside, wrapped in his blanket, holding out a cup with some coins in it.

Thirty-five guests have gone in during that time, but no Eugene.

Further down the street a grey-haired waiter is squatting down outside an Italian restaurant, smoking. When the church bells slowly strike eleven o’clock, Joona limps over to the car.

‘You’d better go in,’ he says to Adam.

‘Can’t you come with me?’

‘I’ll wait here,’ Joona says.

Adam drums his thumbs on the steering wheel.

‘OK,’ he says, and rubs his chin a few times.

‘Take it easy in there,’ Joona says. ‘Just because they’re there doesn’t make them criminals. You’re likely to see quite a lot of drugs, but ignore that. You should intervene only if you see signs of forced sexual activity, or if there’s anyone underage.’

Adam nods, and feels his stomach flutter as he gets out of the car and walks into the hotel.

The softly curved reception desk is empty except for a man talking on the phone.

Adam goes over to the desk, shows his ID, is given a passcard and continues towards the lifts. The Retro Room is at the end of the corridor, and on the door handle is a floppy plastic sign saying ‘Do not disturb’.

Adam hesitates, then lowers the zip of his black leather jacket. His white T-shirt is tucked inside his black jeans, and his Sig Sauer is in a holster beneath his left armpit.

All he has to do is go in, nice and calmly, he tells himself. Find Eugene, take him to one side, and ask his questions.

Adam clears his throat and runs the card through the reader. The lock clicks and a little green light comes on. He opens the door, walks into a dark hallway, and shuts the door behind him.

He can hear music and muffled voices, and a bed creaking.

The light is weak, but it isn’t completely dark. He looks around. He’s in a small lobby where people have left their clothes.

A woman with a boyish blonde haircut comes out of the bathroom and blinks at him in the darkness. She’s wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy black silk panties, and she’s so beautiful that his heart starts to beat faster.

She’s got traces of white powder stuck in the lip-gloss at one corner of her mouth. She looks at Adam with big, black pupils surrounded by a narrow ring of ice-blue. She moistens her lips and says something that he doesn’t hear, before going back into the bedroom.

He follows her, unable to stop himself staring at her naked, glistening back.

Inside the dimly lit room there’s a sweet, smoky smell.

Adam stops and looks over at the bed, then looks away again immediately. He shuffles sideways along the wall, passing a naked man with a glass of champagne in his hand, then stops.

No one has reacted to his presence.

A woman pushes past, her eyes focused on the floor. The wallpaper is pink and wavy, the carpet brown with a starburst pattern. There are no lamps on, but the light of the city outside reaches around the curtains, spreading across the ceiling.

The whole room is heavy with the smell of excited people. Wherever Adam looks he can see glistening genitals, open mouths, breasts, tongues, buttocks.

Apart from the music, there’s very little sound. The people having sex are concentrating on that, intent on their own or their partner’s pleasure. Others are resting, watching the orgy with a hand between their legs.

His pulse thuds in his ears and he can feel himself blushing.

He needs to try to find Eugene.

Adam passes a beautiful woman in her thirties. He can’t help looking at her. She’s wearing a batik blouse, and is sitting on the desk with her eyes closed. Her exposed crotch looks like it’s been powdered. It resembles polished marble, with a line drawn on it in pink chalk.

None of it is as desperate or grubby as he had imagined. It’s more introverted, more self-aware.

Adam carries on round the bed, wondering if this is all simply part of these people’s trendy lifestyle.

He’s the same age as most of the people there, but he’s only there to do his job, and then go home to his wife in Hägersten, no doubt to remember what he has seen forever. He knows already that he won’t be able to talk to her about it – not seriously. He’ll end up joking about it, or turning it into something disgusting.

He looks at the people around him, and thinks that he’ll be able to tell himself that they’re spoiled, that he feels sorry for them, but that isn’t true, not right then.

A pang of envy runs through him.

Adam carries on through the open sliding door to the next room. The wallpaper is darker here, with big, bold patterns, like pale green crystals.

The music is louder. Two naked men have put an orange plastic armchair on top of the bed. A woman with straight black hair is sitting on the chair, laughing as the others rock the armchair on the mattress. More men join in, someone grabs hold of her feet and starts to laugh louder.

The woman with the boyish haircut is kneeling in front of a glass-topped table, dabbing at the remains of some white powder and rubbing her finger on her gums.

He steps aside and almost stands on a large tube of lubricant lying on the floor. Dust and strands of hair have stuck to the goo that’s spilled out.

In the window are ten glasses full of champagne. Drops of condensation are running down the stems and forming small puddles on the marble sill.

Further into the room Adam reaches a windowless passageway containing wardrobes and a suitcase rack. The bathroom door is half-open. A naked woman is sitting slumped on the lid of the toilet, her stomach folded and one arm tensed.

‘Are you all right?’ Adam asks softly.

She lifts her head and looks at him. Her eyes are dark and moist, and he gets a strong feeling that he ought to leave the hotel.

‘Help me,’ she whispers.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I can’t stand up,’ she mumbles.

A slim man comes towards them from the bedroom and stops in the doorway. His erect penis sways as he moves.

‘Is Paula here?’ he asks.

He looks at them through half-closed eyes, and then disappears the way he came.

‘Help me up,’ the woman says, breathing through her mouth.

Adam takes her hand and pulls her up on to her feet. He backs away and she stumbles out of the bathroom, managing to pull a towel down from the rail. Only now does he notice that she has a dildo strapped around her hips. She falls towards him and puts her hand round his neck.

The woman’s breath smells of alcohol, and the dildo slips between his thighs. Her legs begin to give way and he holds her up, feeling her heavy breasts against his body.

‘Can you stand?’

‘I don’t know if this thing is on right,’ she mutters against his neck. ‘Can you check the strap at the back?’

She turns round, leans one hand against the wall, knocking a brown wall-clock and making its plastic cover rattle.

‘Have you seen Eugene?’ Adam asks.

The black leather strap between her buttocks has become twisted, and she feels along it with tired fingers.

‘It’s twisted,’ Adam says.

He doesn’t know what to do, hesitates, then tries to help her. He twists the strap twice, but notices that it’s tangled further down as well.

Her skin is hot and sweaty, he’s trembling and can feel how cold his fingers are as he follows the strap down between her buttocks.

A naked man pushes past and weaves into the bathroom. He urinates without closing the door, or so much as glancing at them.

Adam can’t help noticing that the leather strap between her legs is wet and slippery as he tries to adjust it. She stumbles again and leans her cheek against the wall, as the plastic clock sways on its hook.

A woman in the next room is whimpering, two men move through the passageway, and then he sees the beautiful woman with the boyish haircut in the doorway. She’s no longer wearing her pants. She’s walking slowly towards the next room when she catches sight of him. She raises her champagne glass towards him in a toast, and he sees pale lip-prints on the rim.

The woman in front of him leans her shoulder against the wall, then slides down on to the floor and rests her cheek on the carpet.

The woman with the boyish haircut comes over to Adam, her neck looks flushed, and she leans into him, pressing her forehead to his chest, then looks up at him with a smile.

Adam can’t help himself. He kisses her, and she responds, and he can feel her tongue-stud against his tongue.

He tells himself that he couldn’t help it. It’s wrong and he already knows that he’s going to regret it and will feel terrible afterwards, but all he wants right now is to have sex with her.

The woman on the floor mutters something about falling over, and pulls at his leg, making him sway.

When the woman with the boyish haircut opens his trousers, a wave of icy fear runs through him.

This is too easy, too tempting, he thinks.

But his hands are touching her breasts, they’re warm and tense and powdered with something rough and glittery.

He’s never seen such a beautiful woman.

He picks her up, pushes her back against the wall, and slides inside. Angst and lust spin through him. He groans, and sees her mouth open and Saturn sparkles on her tongue. Her body billows and her breasts quiver with his thrusts. She’s smiling, eyes closed, but she makes no noise, no groaning, and she doesn’t really seem interested in what’s happening, maybe she’s too drugged.

Two women come into the passageway and watch them for a while before they carry on.

The woman with the dildo has got to her feet, she’s standing behind him and her hands are suddenly under his T-shirt, caressing his waist and back. He tries to pull away and doesn’t know if she’s felt his gun, but she suddenly stops, moves away from him, mutters something and lurches into the bedroom.

Adam knows his cover may have been blown, but he can’t stop now. The woman says something to his neck, and he can smell a raspberry aroma from her mouth, she’s trying to get him to slow down, puts her hand on his chest, but he moves her hand away and pushes her hard against the wall.

When Adam enters the third room he immediately catches sight of Eugene Cassel. He’s wearing a black top hat, but nothing else. Five people are having sex with each other on the large bed. The shade of a table lamp is hanging askew and shaking in time with the movement of the bed. Eugene is on his knees behind a woman on all fours.

Her pearl necklace is swinging between her breasts.

The woman with the strap-on dildo comes staggering into the room after Adam. He watches her sit down on the edge of the bed, almost fall, then sit up again. Another woman takes hold of the dildo, says something and laughs. She replies, then coughs into her elbow.

‘What did you say?’

‘Tra-la-la-laa,’ she smiles.

‘OK.’

‘The cops are here, tra-la-laa,’ she repeats, and coughs again.

Eugene hears her words and stops, sits down on the bed and puts an arm on the woman’s backside, and then turns to look at Adam.

‘This is a private party,’ he says with a look of disappointment.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’ Adam says, showing his police ID.

‘Leave your card and I’ll get my lawyers to call you on Monday,’ Eugene says, and gets up from the bed.

Eugene is about forty years old, probably the oldest person in the suite of rooms. His naked, hairless body is in good shape, despite his protruding stomach. His erection has subsided. Beneath the rim of his hat a gold ring sparkles in his eyebrow, and his pupils are dilated.

‘I need to find Filip Cronstedt,’ Adam says.

‘Good luck,’ Eugene says, and raises his hat slightly. ‘He isn’t here, but I can give you a clue: follow the white rabbit.’

‘Listen,’ Adam says. ‘We can leave the hotel nice and quietly, but if I have to, I’ll put handcuffs on you in here and drag you all the way to the car.’

A woman with shimmering white skin and reddish-brown hair in two plaits over her breasts enters the room and comes over to Eugene.

‘Shall I order some food?’ she says, putting a joint to her lips.

‘Still hungry?’ he asks flirtatiously.

She nods and smiles, then exhales a narrow plume of smoke, and walks off towards the phone beside the bed.

‘OK, I’m going to have to arrest you according to chapter twenty-four, paragraph seven of the penal code,’ Adam says.

‘It’s not my fault you went to a bad school and ended up having to join the police,’ Eugene says sternly. ‘The world’s unfair, and—’

‘You know Maria Carlsson, don’t you?’ Adam butts in.

‘I love her,’ he replies slowly.

‘Give her a kiss,’ Adam says, pulling out a picture from the crime scene.

In the sharp light of the flash, the dead woman’s ravaged face, gaping mouth and broken jaw are brutally visible. Eugene whimpers, staggers backwards and knocks over a table lamp, and its brown ceramic base shatters.

Eugene Cassel has put his clothes back on, and Adam has called for a patrol car. They’re walking down the hotel corridor together.

‘I’m really sorry … I’m shocked, just tell me what I can do, I want to help, as a point of honour … but I have to speak to my lawyer first.’

Eugene has washed his face, but his cheeks are white and shiny with sweat.

‘I need to find Filip,’ Adam says.

‘He didn’t do this,’ Eugene says instantly.

‘Filip isn’t at any of the usual addresses, where is he?’

‘I know, he’s not doing too well,’ Eugene says, scratching his forehead with his hat. ‘Look, I’m not going to spread shit about Filip, but the way things are right now, I really don’t want anything to do with him. I’ve tried to get him to seek help, but …’

‘Help with what?’ Adam says.

The lift door opens and they step aside to let a woman in an orange trenchcoat get out before going in.

‘He’s been taking a bit too much,’ Eugene smiles, waving his hand towards his temple.

‘Is he an addict?’

‘Yes, but the problem with taking too much MDPV, MDPPP, MDPBP, MDAI … It doesn’t work, you just get fucking paranoid, and then you get the wrong sort of high and end up feeling so bad you want to die.’

‘Does it make you aggressive?’ Adam asks as they step out of the lift on the ground floor.

‘I mean, you’re terrified the whole time, but sort of ultra-focused at the same time. You think too quickly, don’t sleep at all … The last time I met Filip he was completely fucking manic, said he was on thousands of satellite pictures on Google, kept going on about Saturn being forced to eat his own children … He couldn’t stand still for a second, he kept ranting, waving this little knife around, he cut my hand and yelled that I should be grateful … and then he cut himself, right across the arm. He was dripping with blood as he ran off into the underground.’

They pass the lobby and walk out of the doors on to Tulegatan at the very moment a patrol car pulls up.

‘Right now I just need to know where I can find him,’ Adam repeats, stopping Eugene.

‘OK, I feel like a traitor, but he said they couldn’t see him in the storerooms.’

‘Storerooms?’

‘He rents a load of storage over on Vanadisvägen – you know, that self-storage place. I think he’s got more than half of the storerooms there.’

Two uniformed officers come over and say hello to Adam. One of them leads Eugene to the back seat of the car while the other one listens to Adam.

‘Take him to the custody negotiation room,’ Adam. ‘Make sure he doesn’t call anyone, buy us some time. Once his lawyer shows up we won’t be able to hold him.’