Marked For Revenge

She got up carefully and repeated this again and again, as if to convince herself that she was making the right decision. Slowly she stepped back to the sink and forced herself to breathe calmly.

From now on, everything is different, she thought.

From now on, I’m done with Danilo.

CHAPTER FIVE

GUNNAR ÖHRN AND County Police Commissioner Carin Radler stood in front of the oval table in the police department conference room on the third floor. Gunnar glanced at the clock just as Detective Inspector Mia Bolander came into the room, almost ten minutes late for the meeting with the National Crime Squad.

“Sorry,” she said, mumbling an inaudible explanation. She sat down at the table, avoiding Gunnar’s tired look by fixing her gaze out the window.

He closed the door and sat down next to her.

Around the table sat Mia, Gunnar and Carin, as well as Anneli Lindgren, Henrik Levin and technician Ola Söderström. Mia noticed one more person in the room.

She guessed from his appearance that he was VIP brass.

“What about Jana?” she whispered to Gunnar.

“What about her?” he hissed back.

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“Why not? Why should we have to be here if she doesn’t have to?”

“Because we were told to be here.”

“But she should be here. She was in charge of the preliminary investigation in the case, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?” Gunnar looked at her. “Do you want me to call her?”

“No.”

“Then be quiet.”

Carin Radler cleared her throat.

“Now that we are all here, let me introduce the commissioner of the National Crime Squad, Anders Wester.” Gesturing toward him, she continued, “He and I have had an internal conversation and I’ve called this meeting so that you will all be informed of what he has to say about the investigation that was carried out last spring.”

“Isn’t it better for us to spend our time working on new cases rather than closed ones?” said Gunnar.

Carin ignored him and sat down.

Mia smiled wryly. This was going to be interesting, she thought, her eyes drifting to Anders Wester. She examined his bald head, black-rimmed glasses and blue eyes. His lips were narrow and his face seemed relatively pale. His posture was less than impressive, with stooped shoulders and feet that pointed inward.

“Thank you,” Anders began. “As Carin said, we have already begun a discussion about the investigation you carried out last spring, and that is what I’m here to talk to you about today.”

“Get on with it then,” said Gunnar.

“It happens at times—” Anders straightened his shoulders a little “—that some districts attempt to lead federal murder investigations on their own, without the help of the National Crime Squad. Sometimes the outcome is good. Sometimes not so good. We have brought to Carin’s attention the mistakes that were made in last spring’s investigation.”

The room was quiet. Everyone exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

Then Gunnar scratched his chin and leaned forward over the table.

“Come on, you can say it! You think we did a bad job,” he said.

“Gunnar...” Carin said, holding up a hand to calm him.

“A mistake was made, yes,” Anders replied.

“A mistake?” Gunnar said. “What do you mean, a mistake?”

“It’s called a lack of cooperation. As you know, Gunnar, our purpose is to fight serious organized crime, and in order to carry out our purpose as professionally as possible, we have to cooperate on a national level. It sounds obvious, for most...”

“Listen. We did everything... There wasn’t any more we could do.”

“Except contacting us earlier. Playing special ops is not recommended. Not at the county level.”

“What should we have done, do you think?”

“You should have brought us in much earlier, as I said.”

“We let you take over.”

“Yes, but even that didn’t go according to plan.”

Gunnar chuckled.

“And whose fault was that?”

“Gunnar...” Carin gave him a look of warning.

Mia stretched her legs out in front of her.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Gunnar continued, “but we exposed a gang that had for many years been trafficking drugs via illegal refugee children. We captured their leader, Gavril Bolanaki, and everything was handy-dandy until you took over and started negotiating with Bolanaki.”

“You know very well that he had important information.”

“Oh, yes. I know that you were going to protect him in exchange for his information. Names of middlemen, pushers, places. But he never got around to revealing anything, did he?”

“No. Exactly. What are you getting at?”

“That your ‘protection’ didn’t work very well. Admit it. You never got any information.”

“His case is closed. He killed himself. There wasn’t much more we could do there.”

“Who told you he had information anyway? Bolanaki himself?”

“I am convinced that Gavril Bolanaki would have been a resource for us,” Anders said. “But as I said, that case is closed.”

“Exactly. That must be a tidy way of solving an investigation. Say to hell with finding answers and just end it. It’s obvious you are very competent in this kind of operation.”

“Gunnar!”

Carin slammed her hand down on the table.

“Anders is claiming that we didn’t do our job,” said Gunnar. “But I disagree. We’re the ones who got Gavril Bolanaki, and I think it’s time to say it was you, Anders, who didn’t do your job because you were supposed to protect him.”

Anders smiled.

“That’s funny. You don’t understand what I’m saying, Gunnar. There is no ‘you’ and ‘us.’ The police are one single organization, and I hope you’ll have learned this when the new authority takes over.”

“Oh, yes, thank you. We know that the National Crime Squad is changing its name to the Department of National Operations. But we don’t know anything more than that. We have no idea how the organization will look in detail.”

“No, because it hasn’t been fully decided yet,” Anders interrupted.

Gunnar exchanged an angry glance with Carin, which Anders noticed.

“Maybe it’d be better if Carin explained it to you. Carin is very well-informed about the reorganization.”

“But I am not?”

“You will be now, because unlike you, I choose to share the information I have rather than hiding it.”

“How nice.”

Anders stood behind Carin and rested his hand on her shoulder.

“Carin has been offered the position of regional police chief for Eastern Sweden, and has accepted. Over the course of the year, she will work together with the six other regional chiefs to finalize the details of the new organizational structure and create an action plan for 2015. At the same time, she will be finishing out her assignment here as county police commissioner until she steps into her new position at the start of the New Year.”

Carin stood up, adjusting her jacket, and said, “We have a tight timeline and it will be quite a challenge. Replacing the twenty-one police districts with a single authority can’t be done overnight. As I’m sure you know, we initiated the change in 2010, and now we’re down to the final steps. I understand that you have questions, and I will try to answer them as best I can. Your participation in this process is important to me.”

Carin nodded at the team sitting around the table. Henrik and Anneli smiled, Ola gave her a thumbs-up and Gunnar clapped cautiously.

“Well, congratulations,” Mia said, her arms crossed.

Carin nodded in reply and sat down.

“Carin is right. Your participation and your opinions are important.”

Gunnar sighed loudly. Too loudly.

Anders rubbed his hand across his balding head.

“You know what, Gunnar? I truly believe there are many advantages with the new Swedish Police Authority. But the greatest advantage is probably that the boundaries will be erased, that it will become easier to work together. Don’t you think so?”

* * *

The farm fields were covered in snow, the white blanket taking on a blue cast in the growing darkness. Narrow paths led into the dense forest. Lights from houses and farms glimmered through the trees.

Pim sat with her head resting against the vibrating window on the X2000 express train between Copenhagen and Stockholm. The train had left Copenhagen at exactly 6:36 p.m. and would reach Norrköping in less than four hours.

She touched the passport stuffed into her waistband and felt a gnawing anxiety in her belly. She turned around toward Noi, who sat in the row behind her, arms hanging limp, mouth open. Her gaze was locked on a point far beyond the window.

“Are you sleeping?” Pim asked.

“No,” Noi said, slowly.

“Are you sure someone is going to meet us?”

Noi didn’t answer. She closed her eyes.

“Noi? Noi!”

Noi slowly opened her eyes again and continued to stare out of the window. “I’m freezing,” she said, closing her eyes again. Her head fell gradually forward until her chin met her chest.

“Who’s coming to meet us? Noi? Noi!”

Noi slowly lifted her head back up to meet Pim’s eyes.

Her pupils were awfully small, Pim noticed.

“What’s going on? Are you feeling okay?” Pim asked.

“Nothing...sleep...” Noi slurred.

“Who’s going to meet us? Can’t you answer me?”

But Noi didn’t answer.

Pim pulled her knees up to her chest and sat huddled on the seat, watching the landscape rush past outside. Apart from her anxiety over the drugs still inside her, she felt a different kind of uneasiness now. She remembered clearly the last time she had felt this way.

It had been just one month ago. She’d been sitting on the floor and looking at her dead mother’s face. Her little sister, Mai, hadn’t yet understood what was happening. She’d thought her mother was sleeping, because that was what Pim had told her.

But she hadn’t been sleeping. She’d had the fever. Dengue fever.

Her mother had had bloodshot eyes and large bruises on her body. She’d screamed from the pain in her muscles and joints.

That one time, Pim had wished her father were there. She’d wished him there so that she could be allowed to be a child again.

Just a child.

She had wished that a grown-up would come in and make everything right. But it had been pointless to even think about it, a fruitless hope. Her father had abandoned them long ago. He had a new family; he couldn’t come to her aid then.

And when her mother had refused to go to the hospital, Pim’s last hope had vanished.

“It’s best for me to be here,” her mother had said.

“But they can help you.”

“Help costs money, Pim.”

“But...”

“Promise me instead...that you’ll take care of Mai.” Her mother had coughed out the sentences while frantically clawing at her arm until the fluid-filled blister had popped.

“No... I can’t do it myself!” Pim had said, starting to cry. “She’s only eight years old.”

“You’re fifteen. You can do it.”

Now Pim looked down at her hands, thinking of Mai and wondering what her little sister was doing that very moment. Was she sleeping? Did she feel alone or scared? But Pim was only going to be gone for five days, and soon, soon she would be home with Mai again.

Her lower lip started to quiver and she suddenly felt another, stronger pain—this one from the pills in her stomach.

I have to make sure I get home again, she thought.

* * *

Gunnar Öhrn sat at the desk in his office with his legs spread apart. He stretched his arms up and grunted when he felt the twinge in his shoulders. The pain went all the way up to what used to be his hairline. He felt too heavy and old, but he pushed those thoughts away. He didn’t have time to worry about things like that.

Investigation reports were piled on the bookshelf behind him. He was going to start somewhere in the middle, being effective and focused, reading carefully to shake off this feeling of tiredness.

He picked up folder after folder, flipping through a couple of documents in each one, but hadn’t gotten any further than this when there was a knock at the door. Anders Wester appeared with two coffee mugs in his hands.

“Did I wake you?” he said.

“What do you mean, wake me?” Gunnar asked.

“It looked like you were sleeping.”

“I was just thinking. Since when is that forbidden?”

“This damn weather.”

“I don’t feel like talking.”

Anders put the mugs on the table, sitting down in the chair across from Gunnar and resting his fingertips against each other.

“How is she?” Anders asked.

“Who?” Gunnar said.

“Anneli.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“She looks tired.”

“I’m not into small talk.”

“I just want to know how she is.”

“You shouldn’t give a damn about her, do you hear me?”

“Calm down,” Anders sneered. “I was just asking how she is.”

“And I’m working.”

Gunnar shifted his weight in his chair, feeling the sweat on his back seeping through the material of his shirt. He looked at Anders, who sat composed and still, hands now by his mouth, fingertips still pressed against each other. He had an expression of superiority on his face, a crooked smile visible at the corner of his mouth.

“Coffee?”

“Oh, are we going to take coffee breaks together now, too?”

“Here you go,” Anders said, pushing the mug toward Gunnar, who looked at it with disgust.

“I don’t understand how you can dare to come in here,” Gunnar said.

“I value your opinions,” Anders replied.

“You have nothing to do here.”

“I hear what you’re saying.”

“To think that you have the balls to question our investigation.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“We’re doing ours, too.”

“Clearly not, because I’m here.”

“There must be another reason you’re here. I really want to tell you to go to hell.”

“I know.”

“But then I risk retaliation?”

“You might anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I just said.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Anders continued smiling, rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward.

“No, Gunnar. Why would I threaten you? I just want to make sure that you’re all doing a good job here in Norrköping.”

“I have worked in law enforcement my whole life. I know how to do a good job.”

“Then I’ll have to see that you do a better job, then.”

“You can sit here, leaning in to seem more dangerous,” Gunnar said, leaning back in his chair, “and you can say whatever you want. I’m still not going to listen.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Anders said.

“I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you do. It seems like you don’t understand the importance of cooperation. That we are going to cooperate. Regional and National Crime Squads. Norrköping and Stockholm. You and me, Gunnar.”

Gunnar didn’t want to hear any more. Sweat ran down his temples, but he didn’t dare wipe it away for fear of showing Anders how upset he really was.

“Obviously, we will cooperate,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You and me. Anything else I can do for you?”

Anders stood up.

“No,” he said, putting his hand out and giving Gunnar a firm handshake. Unnecessarily firm, for unnecessarily long.

And Gunnar responded.

Just as unnecessarily hard and for just as unnecessarily long.

CHAPTER SIX

HIS COAT SPARKLED with snowflakes.

Karl Berzelius stamped the snow from his shoes before he got into the taxi outside the Louis De Geer Concert Hall.

He raked his hand through his thick gray hair and straightened his coat underneath him.

Margaretha was already sitting in the backseat with her purse on her lap. She wiped her delicate eyeglasses with a tissue before replacing them on her nose and carefully folding the tissue and putting it back into her purse, closing it with a click.

“Fantastic,” she murmured as the taxi swung out onto the cobblestones.

“What did you say?” Karl asked, looking out the window.

“The concert was fantastic. The best I’ve heard in a long time. Makes me happy.”

“Yes, it is one of the most played pieces in the entire piano repertoire.”

“I understand why.”

“Rachmaninoff, hard to beat.”

“Yes.”

He looked at the snowdrifts. As the car turned to the right, he turned his gaze up to the garlands that hung over the street, watching the thousands of lights swaying back and forth.

“It’s the second Sunday of Advent this week,” Margaretha murmured. “And Christmas soon...”

She said it quietly, but he heard her.

“Yes? And what about it?”

She didn’t answer at first, as if she were biding her time. Then came the question he had expected. “Maybe it’s time to invite her over?”

He looked at his wife, saw how she was hugging her purse and knew that she was waiting for his reaction.

“For Christmas, yes,” he replied.

“Or earlier, maybe even this Saturday so that we could...”

He held his hand up, signaling that he’d heard enough.

“Please, Karl.”

“No.”

“But I don’t want to wait until Christmas, and I think it’s a good idea if we...”

“She hasn’t called.”

“But I’ve called her.”

He glared at her, making Margaretha hug her purse even more tightly.

“Have you spoken with her?” he asked.

“Yes, and you should, too. It’s been a long time since you did,” she said, adding his name. “Karl.”

He cleared his throat.

“I don’t want to hear any more,” he said.

“So we should just leave her alone?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“That’s enough! If you want to see her, do it. Invite her over. Do what you want! But leave me out of it!”

There it was again. The anger, irritation. He surprised himself with it. He heard her sigh but didn’t care.

He turned his gaze back to the window.

Back to the swaying lights.

* * *

Jana Berzelius opened her inbox and glanced through new emails that she had received during the late afternoon. The first was from Torsten Granath, an invitation to the regional prosecutorial chamber’s traditional Christmas dinner at the Göta Hotel in Borensberg. The next two were regarding a hearing about an assault at a pub, to be held at Norrköping’s district court within a week. The last one contained a two-page document that had to do with an amendment decision in the Swedish Prosecution Authority statute book.

Twenty minutes later, she turned off her computer and walked slowly into her bedroom, taking off her clothes, folding them and putting them on a chair. She turned on the light in her walk-in closet and stood before the mirror that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. She pushed her long, dark hair to the side, letting it fall over her right breast.

She stood and examined herself for a moment, studying her arms, hips and thighs. She let her hand caress her shoulder, down to the curve of her back, her buttocks. Her whole body shuddered as she surveyed her bruises. They had darkened, and would gradually disappear—along with her thoughts of Danilo.

She pulled a drawer out, forcefully grabbed a silk bra and matching panties, flung them onto the bed and went into the bathroom. She showered quickly, put on the underwear and swept a thin bathrobe around herself.

In the kitchen, she poured a glass of wine, stood by the window and looked at the dense clouds. After taking a big sip, she held the cool glass to her temple. Leaving the window, she went into her office and unlocked the door to the secured inner room.

Standing on the threshold, she turned on the light and looked into the small secret space. Her gaze traveled across the bulletin boards, whiteboard, pictures, photographs, books and notes. Every detail of her childhood that she could find, she had recorded here. She carefully stroked her neck with her fingertips. She felt the uneven skin, the three letters that would never disappear, that were immortalized in her pale skin. K. E. R. Ker—the goddess of death.

Her eyes focused on the drawing in the middle of the bulletin board, attached with staples in every corner. It was a sketch she had drawn of Danilo after their encounter last spring. After all these years, she had searched for him then in his home in Södertälje.

Tell me instead what you as a prosecutor are doing in my place, he had said to her. He hadn’t any idea who she was when she had suddenly appeared in his home.

I need your help.

He had laughed.

Oh, really? You don’t say. How interesting. And what can I help you with?

You can help me to find out something.

Something? And what is this something about?

My background.

Your background? How could I help you with that when I don’t even know who you are?

But I know who you are.

Really? Who am I, then?

You are Danilo.

Brilliant. Did you work that out all by yourself, or did you perhaps read my name on the door?

You are someone else, too?

You mean I’m schizoid?

Show me your neck?

He had fallen completely silent.

You’ve got another name written there, she had said. I know what it says. If I guess right then you must tell me how you got it. If I guess wrong then you can let me go.

We’ll change the agreement a little. If you guess right then I’ll tell you. Sure, that’s no problem. If you guess wrong, or if I don’t have a name on my neck, then I’ll shoot you.

She had guessed correctly.

She took another sip of wine, went into the room, sat on the chair and put the glass on the desk in front of her.

She felt some sort of melancholy about what she had to do.

No one knew that she had a room dedicated to all of the unsorted memories of her childhood, and no one would ever know, either. She hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. Not her father or mother. The room had been her own business and no one else’s.

Last spring, she had gotten more answers about her background than she had wanted. She had found out about the man who had made her into what she was, into what she had been: a child soldier.

She still remembered his words: From a crushed child you can carve out a deadly weapon. A soldier without feelings, without anything to lose, is the most dangerous there is.

She was made to call him Papa.

But his real name was Gavril Bolanaki.

Now Gavril was dead, and from Danilo—or Hades, as was carved into his neck as a trafficked child—there was nothing left to gain.

She got up suddenly and started to pull the pictures of the shipping containers from the walls and folded them up. She ripped down the pictures of the house on the island outside Arkösund, where she had lived with Danilo and the other children. She put the photographs of mythological gods and goddesses into an envelope and piled the books about Greek mythology in stacks. She erased the notes from the whiteboard. She took empty boxes, lined them up along the wall in the bedroom, and put all of the pictures, books, photographs and notes in them. Finally, she took down the sketch of Danilo and put it on the boxes.

In the kitchen, she poured a new glass of wine and drank it standing up. Then she went back into the bedroom, opened her nightstand drawer and looked at the journals hidden there.

For a moment, she considered just leaving them there, but she regretted the hesitation and put them into the boxes, too.

After two hours, both the hidden room and one more glass of wine were empty.

With her finger on the switch, she looked around the room and realized that, without all of the materials of her investigation, the room looked remarkably naked.