The Golden Calf (34 page)

“Can you describe him more fully?”

“He looks Mediterranean. Dark hair, dark, bushy eyebrows, dark brown eyes. He’s good looking, about thirty or thirty-five, and he wore a suit and an overcoat.”

Irene did not recognize anyone from this description. Was this a false alarm? In order to hurry Nurse Ann-Britt along, she said encouragingly, “You said he came back this morning?”

“Yes. Actually, I was supposed to be on the afternoon shift, but I’d changed shifts with a colleague. She had to go to a birthday celebration for someone who turned forty—doesn’t matter. This morning I saw that man again when I got off the bus. He was smoking outside the emergency entrance. Today he was wearing dark pants and a dark blue jacket, but I’m absolutely sure it was him.”

“What time was this?”

“Five after seven. When I came into the nurses’ office, I found a note from Lasse, the night nurse. I’d told him about the suspicious man the night before when I went off shift. In his note, Lasse said that the man had come back at visiting hours around seven
P.M
. He wore the same clothes and matched my description. He went around the unit as he had in the afternoon. However, Lasse wasn’t sure it was the same man, and since the man left the unit and wasn’t on the hospital grounds any more, he decided not to call.”

“Did he stop near Sanna’s room again?” Irene felt her pulse start to race. Adrenaline was pumping through her system; she had caught scent of her prey. This could be the man they were looking for. Irene swung her legs over the edge of the bed and was now paying full attention.

“Lasse didn’t say anything in the note. But the man must have passed the room, although Sanna’s mother and sister were there. They’d arrived at three in the afternoon and stayed all evening. And, of course, there’s the policeman at the door.”

Irene’s heart pounded. A plan came to her. “We’ll be there
within the hour. In the meantime, here’s what you should do.…”

I
RENE WAS ABLE
to reach Kajsa and Fredrik, but neither Birgitta nor Jonny picked up. Irene didn’t bother to call Tommy at his parents’ on Hönö Island. She contacted Andersson from her Volvo on the way to Östra Hospital.

Exactly one hour after the phone call Irene had received, the four police officers were gathered outside the closed cafeteria on the ground floor of the hospital building. There were hardly any other people around at that hour.

“Did you two get your guns from the station?” asked Andersson.

Kajsa nodded and Fredrik opened the side of his jacket to reveal his holster.

“Good. Two should be enough.”

They split up and took different elevators to the floor of Sanna’s unit. If the suspect spotted all four of them together, he’d know the police were after him.
It’s like we give off a special scent that the bad guys can smell
, Irene thought.

Irene and Andersson were the first to arrive, and they strolled slowly to the reception desk. The gray-haired nurse was inside the glass walls of the nurses’ office on the phone. She waved to Irene to indicate that she’d seen her and ended her call. Just as Irene had guessed, Nurse Ann-Britt was the same nurse she’d met the day before. She was in her sixties and had energetic brown eyes.

“He hasn’t come,” she said in a low voice. “At least, not yet.”

“Good. This is Superintendent Sven Andersson,” Irene said.

“You must mean ‘Head Doctor Nils Dürsell,’ don’t you?” the nurse said, conspiratorially.

She looked over the superintendent’s shoulder and a
surprised expression crossed her face.
Oh God! The killer’s right behind us!
Irene thought, but one glance at the reflection in the glass wall of the office made her relax. It was just Kajsa and Fredrik joining them. Irene realized that the Nurse was reacting to Kajsa’s face, still a remarkable sight, although the colors were fading.

“Wounded in the line of duty,” Kajsa said with a broad smile.

Although Nurse Ann-Britt now understood the reason behind Kajsa’s appearance, she didn’t seem to relax.

“So, where are the uniforms?” Irene asked. She felt that their standing like this, all in a group, would call more attention to them than they wanted.

“Follow me,” said Nurse Ann-Britt.

In the employee dressing room, there were scrubs, pants, and doctor’s coats in different sizes laid out neatly in a row on a bench.

“This is the best I could do,” the nurse said apologetically. “We are always short on clean scrubs.”

“These are fine,” Irene said. “Could you show us how to dress so we look authentic?”

There were no pants big enough to go around Andersson’s stomach bulk, but they solved the problem with a stretchy band, and the top was long enough to conceal the makeshift closure. They added a doctor’s coat, a stethoscope, a few pens in the breast pocket, and a nametag that read
NILS DÜRSELL, HEAD DOCTOR
.

Irene got a set of scrubs and an oval nametag decorated with a wreath of flowers around it. It said
BRITT, ASSISTANT NURSE
. Fredrik was dressed in a similar way to Andersson, but his nametag just said:
ATTENDING DOCTOR
.

“These tags were left in a box here on the unit. All the employees know that you’ll be mixing with them. They’ll pretend nothing out of the ordinary is going on. Just don’t forget your names,” said Nurse Ann-Britt.

“Nils Dürsell, Nils Dürsell,” Andersson mumbled to himself.

Nurse Ann-Britt had found a disguise for Kajsa as a cleaning lady with the typical blue uniform and a cart she could push around. Her simple nametag just said
DANOUTA
. Kajsa took a pair of gray-tinted glasses from her shoulder bag. Sunglasses would have been too obvious, especially in October, but a bit of tint would draw less attention to the multi-colored area around her eyes.

The most pressing problem was what to do with Fredrik’s Sig Sauer. The holster was far too apparent underneath his scrubs top, even if he put a doctor’s coat over it. They solved this by borrowing Kajsa’s shoulder bag.

“Let’s stuff some folders and paper into it, so that it looks like you have a lot of paperwork,” suggested Nurse Ann-Britt. “Then you can put your, um, gun, right into the open bag.” Nurse Ann-Britt gave the weapon a nervous glance. Fredrik practiced drawing his gun out quickly a few times, and then they were ready to go.

“If a patient or a relative stops you, just say that you don’t work in this unit,” Nurse Ann-Britt suggested. “You can also say things like, ‘This is not my patient, I’ll go get Nurse Ann-Britt for you.’ Then just come and get me. We’re going to put Head Doctor Dürsell in the nurses’ office. You’ll be able to look out through the glass wall and see everyone coming and going. Pretend you’re reading a medical journal or something.”

Andersson nodded nervously. He hadn’t expected to deal with questions from patients or relatives.

“On Sundays, we don’t have normal rounds,” explained Nurse Ann-Britt. “We usually just check on specific patients. For instance, it wouldn’t be unusual for the head doctor to take a peek into Sanna’s room.…” Nurse Ann-Britt said, smiling meaningfully.

Andersson nodded again.

“You can clean near the elevators and then at the doors to the entrance of the unit,” Nurse Ann-Britt told Kajsa.

Kajsa nodded. “Just let me know when he comes into the building. I’ll have my cell phone on vibrate.”

“Oh, so sexy,” said Fredrik.

“You’re sounding more like Jonny every day,” said Irene. “You’ve been working with him too much.”

“Stop chatting and let’s get down to business,” growled Andersson.

Irene spoke up. “We have to leave one by one. Try to leave a minute or two between the person before you.”

Irene and Nurse Ann-Britt kept each other company as they left the changing room.

Once on the floor, they saw that the breakfast trays were being delivered. Irene got in line with the other nurses and was handed a tray. A young man behind her cleared his throat and then whispered into her ear, “Take another one. That patient needs to be fed by hand.”

The young man was wearing a scrubs shirt with a piece of tape fastened on which the name
MAGNUS
was printed in blue marker. He had an astounding tattoo of a colorful dragon whirling up his neck. Irene shuddered in spite of herself, because the tattoo reminded her of an unpleasant case she’d had a few years back. His black hair was shaved on the sides and back, leaving only a tuft at the top of his head.

Irene smiled gratefully and handed him the tray. She had never tried to feed a grown person, and if she did try, it would take too long. Instead, she took the next tray, which the card said was for “3:2 J. Fredriksson DK.”

“Room three, bed two,” Magnus whispered from the corner of his mouth.

Irene nodded slightly. Carrying the tray, she decided to reconnoiter a bit around the floor. She peered at each door; it was no trouble to look like someone new to the unit.

The door to Sanna’s room was closed. The same policewoman was sitting at her place beside it. She looked up at Irene but didn’t appear to recognize her.
Did Ann-Britt forget to inform her about their plans?
Irene wondered.

Irene hesitated, but then her colleague gave her an almost unnoticeable wink. Not much, but enough for Irene to feel calm again.

Just to complete her tour, she also went down the hallway parallel to Sanna’s. She didn’t see anything unusual there, either. On her way back to Room 3, she spied Kajsa cleaning near the elevators. Kajsa was mopping the floor so professionally it looked like she’d been a cleaning lady all her life.

Room 3 had two beds, each occupied by an elderly gentleman.

J. Fredriksson was angry. “Finally! Here you are with my food! And it’s cold! Why am I always last? And I bet they forgot I need special food for diabetics!” He was tall and emaciated. His gold-tinged parchment skin looked like it was molded to his cranium. His hand, with visible blue veins, shook as he pointed an accusing finger at Irene.

“Come now, Jocke, don’t complain so much. The girls are running as fast as they can,” his roommate said in a friendly tone.

The roommate was already sitting up in bed and eating. He seemed to be a few years younger than Jocke Fredricksson. He was short and muscular. At the end of his bed was a wheelchair. Irene realized both his legs had been amputated above the knee.

Irene smiled at both men as she placed the tray on the opened flap of Fredriksson’s nightstand.

“I’m sorry,” Irene said. “I’m really new here.”

“You don’t look all that new and fresh to me,” muttered Jocke Fredriksson.

Jerk
, Irene couldn’t help thinking. She kept her smile, however, even if it wasn’t as bright as usual.

“So you’re a nursing assistant?” asked the amputee, who’d seen her nametag.

“That’s right.”

“So are you the one who will be turning me over today?”

Irene hoped that the sudden anxiety she felt did not show on her face. “No, no, I believe that’s Nurse Ann-Britt. I’ll make sure to ask her,” she replied.

The man nodded and seemed content with her answer. Irene slunk out of the room again.

As she came back into the hallway, she saw Fredrik walking hurriedly toward her with his coattails flying behind him. Folders stuck up from his shoulder bag, and he held a thick book. He’d found some glasses to perch on his nose, and he peered over them as he strode along. From a distance, he even appeared fairly intelligent.

Head Doctor Nils Dürsell was inside the glass wall of the nurses’ office with a thick compendium in front of him that he was pretending to read. One eye was trained on the entrance to the unit, which made him look somewhat cross-eyed.

Irene jumped when she felt someone tugging on the back of her scrubs. She whirled around and saw nothing until she looked down at a tiny woman whose face was frozen in fear.

“Excuse me, nurse, could you tell me when my husband’s test results are in?” she said timidly.

Irene fell back into her role quickly. “What’s your husband’s name?”

“Jakob Fredriksson,” the tiny woman whispered.

So, here we have the jerk’s unlucky wife
, Irene thought. Aloud, she said, in a friendly manner, “Unfortunately, I’m not assigned to his room. I can ask Nurse Ann-Britt for you.”

“Thank you … thank you so much. You want to know everything when you’re dealing with … cancer.” The tiny woman whispered the last word and headed into Room 3.

Cancer. Irene’s father had died of cancer more than ten years
ago. She remembered how hard it had been for everyone before he died. Certainly modern medicine had made great strides since then, and people who once would have been doomed to die were now being saved. Still, just the word “cancer” was enough to strike fear in anyone. Irene felt a rush of sympathy for old Jocke. He was going through a tough fight. Perhaps he’d already lost the battle; no surprise that he was gruff. But better that than passively accepting his fate. Then it’d be all over. You have to keep fighting to the bitter end, as her mother Gerd always said, using one of the few English idioms she knew.

Magnus stuck his head, with its black topknot, through the doorway.

“Britt, it’s soon time for coffee break. Can you start collecting the trays?”

It took a second for Irene to realize he was talking to her.

“Sure, I’ll get them,” she said.

“I’ll stick around and help you,” said a small, blonde woman about Irene’s age. She introduced herself as Anette, and she was a real assistant nurse. She smiled at Irene.

“We can wait a few more minutes, though. Let them have a chance to eat up. Then we can start at each end of the hallway, you on that side, and I’ll start on this one.”

The assistant nurse pointed to the rooms at the end of the hallway by the entrance. Irene nodded and walked that way, passing the nurses’ office.

The superintendent was really into his role as the head doctor. His eyeglasses had slid down his nose as he pored over the thick compendium, all the while keeping a good eye on the entrance. When he saw Irene, he raised the compendium as a discreet greeting. Irene read the title of the compendium:
Hygienic Routines for Cleaning Infected Rooms in Both Open- and Closed-Care Units
. It didn’t look like anything a head doctor would read on a Sunday morning, so Irene was relieved when he put the thick compendium back on the table.