The Long Shadow (25 page)

‘What does she want?’ Annika whispered to Berit, who shrugged.

‘Annika,’ Eva-Britt Qvist said. ‘I want a word with you.’

‘Sure,’ Annika said. ‘What about?’

She held a printout towards Annika, who took it and saw that it was the article she had at the top of her bundle of printouts. ‘Swedish government prepares to
get tough on money-laundering,’ she read, then lowered the sheet. ‘Yes, and?’

‘This article has been written to order at the request of the Ministry of Justice,’ Eva-Britt Qvist said. ‘We must make sure that this newspaper doesn’t become an uncritical mouthpiece for government propaganda.’

Annika raised her eyebrows. ‘But, Eva-Britt,’ she said, ‘surely you don’t think I look like a megaphone.’

The union rep blushed. ‘Well, someone has to try to maintain the ethical rules,’ she said, and grabbed the printout.

‘This is a good and important series of articles,’ Annika said. ‘It puts a new perspective on the drug trade in Sweden, shows how global finance and international crime affect us here.’

‘In that case, why aren’t we doing it on our own initiative? Why let the Justice Ministry commission it?’

‘They’re opening doors for us. As a reporter out in the field, you need friends you can call on – you know that as well as I do.’

Berit gave Annika a thumb’s-up behind Eva-Britt’s back. Eva-Britt Qvist had never worked as a journalist, a particularly sore point. She’d started in the archive, then worked her way up to become a secretary before she was elected as union rep.

She turned on her heel and sailed off through the newsroom.

‘I thought you had serious doubts about the Costa Cocaine articles?’ Berit said.

Annika smiled. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said, logging into the national database. ‘What are you working on today?’

‘The Supreme Court has granted Filip Andersson’s right to appeal,’ Berit said. ‘I suppose I’ll have to put together a short piece about that.’

Annika lifted her head from her screen and looked at her. ‘Why do you sound so sceptical?’

‘I don’t know,’ Berit said. ‘I just don’t think he’s innocent. I think he did carry out those murders.’

‘You can’t mean that,’ Annika said, her fingers poised above her keyboard. ‘They’ve identified Yvonne Nordin’s fingerprints and DNA at the crime scene. They found the meat-cleaver buried behind her cottage, right where Filip Andersson said it would be. Filip’s description of how Yvonne shot the victims in the legs fits as well. How can you doubt it?’

Berit took off her reading-glasses. ‘It could just as easily have been Filip who buried the meat-cleaver. And the fact that he knew about the shots could be because he fired them.’

‘But it still doesn’t make sense,’ Annika said. ‘He refused to tell the truth while Yvonne was alive because it would have meant signing his own death-warrant. But as soon as she was gone he could tell the truth.’

‘Or else he could begin to lie,’ Berit said.

Annika shook her head. ‘It was Yvonne who killed David and kidnapped Alexander. And it was Yvonne who killed those people on Sankt Paulsgatan …’ She stopped herself and swallowed. ‘They never found the amputated body parts, did they?’

Berit sighed and put her glasses back on. ‘Two hands and a foot are still missing,’ she said, picking up the phone to call the Supreme Court.

Annika stared off towards Sport, and the image from Sankt Paulsgatan emerged from her memory.

Nina Hoffman had been first up the stairs, then Julia, and lastly Annika, first one floor, then another. Annika had stopped on the stairs, but she still saw the scene. Her memory was dominated by the smell, sweet and heavy and thick. In the fragmented images she couldn’t
see any blue-trousered police legs in the way, just the dying woman, the blood on the walls, the arm without a hand. The woman, who was really little more than a girl, had crawled out into the stairwell, blood pumping from the stump of her arm, pouring over the floor and onto the stairs, splashing up the walls. The blood bright red, the walls yellow. Her hair was dark and her skull had been smashed in. Julia had thrown up in a window alcove and Nina had driven Annika out onto the street: ‘
Get out of here!
’

Annika shuddered. She turned back to her screen, and went into the national ID database. Gender: male. Name: Joakim Martinez. Check phonetic spellings: yes.

One result: a young man in the south of Sweden who didn’t call himself Joakim and who was eighteen years old. It couldn’t be him.

She blinked. There must be something wrong. Every Swede was in this database, the official national register. Either Niklas Linde had got the wrong name for the drug-runner, or he wasn’t a Swedish citizen. She tried male and Martinez.

Too many results (820). Refine search.

She screwed her eyes shut.

Niklas had mentioned another name, a middle name, hadn’t he?

Jocke Something Martinez.

Damn. Why hadn’t she written it down?

‘Are we going back to yours or mine?’ he had asked, then kissed her, and that was when he had said the name.

The whole name.

Jocke Zarco Martinez?

Could that be it? How was that spelled?

She tried male and Zarco Martinez.

Two results, but the first was completely clean.

Johan Manolo Zarco Martinez, twenty-six years old, registered in Skärholmen in the south of Stockholm,
deregistered
.

She leaned towards the screen.

Deregistered?

She clicked to bring up the man’s full details:
This individual has emigrated or been transferred to the register of untraceable persons.

Of course. He’d emigrated to Spain, and his name wasn’t Joakim but Johan.

Then she was struck by a thought from a dusty corner of her mind. She stared at the screen.

Zarco Martinez.

She’d seen that name before. Not heard it, because she didn’t know how it was spelled, Sarco or Zharco or Charco, but she’d seen it on a screen, just like now. She was quite sure of it.

Zarco Martinez, Zarco Martinez. When, where, how?

She couldn’t think of anything, and let it go.

How was she going to get in touch with Johan Manolo Zarco Martinez in some Spanish prison? Through his lawyer? And what might their name be? She smiled, took out her mobile and opened the address book. Niklas Linde, Spain. She loosened her shoulders, then pressed ‘call’.

He answered at once.

‘Hello,’ she said, in a high voice. ‘It’s Annika – Annika Bengtzon, from the
Evening Post
in—’

‘Hi, Annika,’ he said easily. ‘How are things?’

‘Fine, thanks. How about you?’

‘The sun’s shining and I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’

‘Are you in Spain, by any chance?’

‘Puerto Banús, baby.’

‘Great, because there’s something I need help with.’

‘Oh, I see. What?’

She could hear laughter and the rattle of crockery in the background. She could see him before her, suntanned and in a loose sports shirt, sunglasses and stubble. ‘That guy,’ she said, ‘the one who was arrested that night in San Pedro …’

‘When you didn’t want to play?’

She felt her face glowing and lowered it towards the keyboard. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘His name is Johan Manolo Zarco Martinez, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely right.’

‘I’d like to interview him.’

An espresso machine was making a noise somewhere behind Linde down there in the sun. He waited for it to stop. Then she heard a wind blowing. So he was outside. It was probably hot, the wind warm and dry.

‘That’s going to be tricky,’ he said. ‘He’s in prison in Málaga and I presume you’re in Stockholm.’

‘I’m coming down tomorrow,’ Annika said, blushing furiously when he laughed.

‘Really? That’s interesting,’ he said.

‘Is he under any restrictions, or can he have visitors?’

‘I think the restrictions have been lifted. He’s elated. Unfortunately he doesn’t know very much. He’s spilled the beans on the rest of the gang who are already under arrest, but he hasn’t told us anything new.’

‘Do you think he’d talk to the
Evening Post
?’

Annika heard a woman’s voice say something quietly in Spanish close to Linde’s mobile. The police officer replied
vale
and
hasta luego
, then she heard something that sounded like a kiss.

She put her hands over her eyes.

‘I doubt he’d want to be depicted as the grass of the
gang, if I can put it like that,’ Linde said lightly, when the woman had gone.

Annika looked at the time. Was he having breakfast? Or just coffee? Who was the woman? Something serious, or just for the night?

‘I’m not expecting any long confessional,’ Annika said, making an effort to sound professional. ‘I want to conduct a personal interview with him, about how he ended up in this position, his life on the Costa del Sol …’

‘I can check with his lawyer, if you like. When are you arriving? Do you want to be picked up at the airport?’

She had to exert herself not to sound too happy. ‘Thanks, but don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll be heading straight to the international seminar about money-laundering in Málaga. There’s some sort of press conference at the Palacio de Congresos at two o’clock.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you there. I’m going as well.’

She experienced a peculiar sensation in her stomach. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Maybe you could help with a few other things as well. Do you know if there’s a Swedish lawyer or solicitor in Gibraltar who could explain how dirty drug money gets turned into clean business profits? Or a Swedish girl with silicon tits who’d like to tell me all about her crazy jet-set life in Puerto Banús?’

‘The lawyer might be difficult, but I ought to be able to find you a few girls. How important are the breasts?’

‘Absolutely vital.’

‘Consider it done,’ he said, and laughed.

She smiled down the phone.

‘See you tomorrow,’ he said, and ended the call.

He was going to be there. She was going to see him. He’d offered to pick her up from the airport. Maybe he’d kiss her again.

‘Earth calling Annika,’ Berit said, waving a hand in front of her face. ‘Who was that?’

Annika cleared her throat and hurriedly shuffled a pile of papers. ‘A policeman in Málaga,’ she said.

‘Knut Garen?’

‘No,’ Annika said. ‘His Swedish colleague.’

Berit looked at her intently over the top of her glasses. ‘Policemen are usually good in bed,’ she said. ‘It’s something to do with how masculine they are. Same thing with senior ranks in the armed forces.’

Annika realized her jaw must have dropped.

‘Just a little tip,’ Berit said, then went back to her screen.

Annika wrote an article about a man who had had sex with a bicycle, a note about a miracle wrinkle cream from Britain that had just gone on sale in Sweden, then did a quick follow-up piece about a company director who had been acquitted of aggravated tax avoidance in the Court of Appeal. ‘This proves what I’ve been saying all along,’ the man thundered. ‘I’m completely innocent! The verdict proves it!’

‘Well,’ Annika said, ‘it doesn’t, really. It just means that the evidence wasn’t sufficient to secure a conviction. There’s a significant difference.’

She ate a baguette with Camembert and ham for lunch, and drank two cups of coffee from the cafetière she and Berit had clubbed together to buy for themselves.

She checked out a rumour that a famous television celebrity had hit his girlfriend. Both the girlfriend and the celebrity were denying it vehemently. Annika drew the conclusion that the rumour was perfectly true, but let it go.

A security van had been robbed on Sveavägen in the centre of Stockholm.

A fourteen-year-old had been raped by her sports coach.

A high-jump star had said something nasty about a long-jump star. The long-jump star had replied with something even nastier.

This last item was deemed to be the most important thing that had happened all day, and was given a huge amount of space on the website. People were encouraged to write in and comment on the ‘star quarrel’, and were asked to tick a box and vote for which one they supported.

Once Patrik had gone to the editorial conference and was unable to throw any more notes in her direction, she took the opportunity to read up about money-laundering on the Costa del Sol. She found a fresh article from one of the morning papers in the archive. It was about Operation ‘White Whale’, described as the largest police crackdown in Spain to date against international money-laundering and the Mafia behind it. After eighteen months’ surveillance and bugging, the police had raided several locations on the Costa del Sol, according to the paper. More than forty people had been arrested: Spaniards, Moroccans, Russians, Ukrainians, French and Finns. Seven were lawyers, and three public clerks. A Russian oil company was also involved. They had seized 251 apartments and villas, forty-two luxury cars, two planes and a yacht, as well as numerous works of art and jewellery. The amount of money that had been laundered was estimated to be at least a quarter of a billion euros, more than two billion kronor, thanks to fake companies in various tax havens, mainly Gibraltar. The money had then been filtered back into Spain and invested in construction and property companies on the Costa del Sol, described as ‘the biggest tourist paradise in Europe, and its hottest property market’.

The spider at the centre of the money-laundering and fake companies was said to be a firm of solicitors in
Marbella. Its founder had taken care of legal matters and the formalities surrounding the establishment of the companies, including finding stooges to run them.

She Googled a bit more and found a company at Stureplan, in the centre of Stockholm, specializing in ‘taxation law for the global economy’. It explained to her why Gibraltar in particular was so practical for ‘international investors’.

Companies in Gibraltar had been free from taxation since 1967, she read. When Spain had joined the EU in 1985, the number of companies registered there had exploded. The regulations were tailor-made for foreign proprietors who didn’t want anyone to know what was going on.