AS USUAL IRENE was out of breath as she dashed into the department, desperately hoping she would have time to grab a cup of coffee to bring to morning prayer. She hurtled around the corner at top speed and kicked open the door of her office, trying to wriggle out of her bulky winter coat at the same time. The young man waiting inside was very nearly smacked in the face by the door as it flew open. He looked just as surprised as Irene; she stopped dead in the doorway, staring at her unexpected visitor.
“Oh … sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone in here,” she eventually managed to stammer.
The man was between twenty-five and thirty, medium height, with thick dark brown hair and amber-colored eyes. He was stocky but looked as if he worked out. He was attractive, and she knew she’d never seen him before. A thick Canada Goose jacket was hanging neatly over the back of one of the visitor chairs. He was wearing sturdy boots, and the rest of his clothing—blue jeans and a dark blue sweater over a thin white cotton polo turtleneck—gave no clue to his identity. A faint aroma of a spicy aftershave hovered in the air.
Irene pulled herself together and held out her hand. “Good morning. Detective Inspector Irene Huss.”
He took her hand in a firm grip and answered, “Morning. Stefan Sandberg.”
Irene was taken aback. This must be Torleif Sandberg’s son. But there was no way this could be the little boy in the photo she had seen in Muesli’s apartment. That little boy had been blond and fair skinned.
“I’m very sorry for your loss; your father’s death was a real tragedy …” she began, but stopped when she saw the expression on his face.
“Thank you,” he replied stiffly.
Tommy stuck his head around the door, “Morning! Are you joining us? We’re starting … oh, you’ve got a visitor at this early hour! Or is this gentleman here to see me?”
Tommy came into the room, smiling at the unexpected visitor. Irene quickly made the introductions.
“If you’re here about the investigation into your father’s death, you really need to speak to DI Hannu Rauhala again; he’s in charge of that particular inquiry,” Irene informed Stefan Sandberg.
She still hadn’t given up hope of that trip to the coffee machine.
“I know. But he’s off sick today. The winter stomach bug, according to an older guy who I assume is some kind of chief around here. He sent me to you because I have something to report,” he said, his expression serious.
“And what’s that?” Irene asked. She had to make a real effort to hide her impatience.
“Torleif’s car has been stolen.”
Both Irene and Tommy were lost for words.
“Stolen?” Irene repeated eventually.
“Yes. The car has been stolen. It’s not in his parking space.”
All three of them jumped as the internal phone rang at that moment, and the superintendent’s hoarse voice bellowed through the speaker. “Get yourselves in here right now!”
“Okay, okay!” Tommy called out.
Irene turned to Stefan. “As I’m sure you realize, we’re short-staffed today. But we’d really like to talk to you. Would it be possible for you to come back after lunch, say around one o’clock or one thirty?”
“Sure, no problem,” Stefan Sandberg said with a nod, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair.
“HANNU AND BIRGITTA are at home throwing up. The winter stomach bug has hit their kid’s daycare facility,” Superintendent Andersson informed his team by way of opening the new working week.
Several people looked anxious, and he hastened to reassure them. “Their little boy got sick on Friday, and Hannu and Birgitta yesterday. I called the health service information line and spoke to a nurse. There’s a good chance we’ve escaped because this goddamn stomach bug strikes fast, and nobody else got sick over the weekend, so let’s hope she’s right.”
In spite of this, Andersson looked worried.
“This is going to mean a significant workload increase for the rest of us because Hannu and Birgitta are unlikely to be back before the end of the week at the earliest. I’ve got a guy on loan from the main office; he’s pretty new, but he can help Jonny with the search for the hit-and-run driver and his pal. Any luck yet?”
Andersson turned to Jonny Blom, who was slumped in his chair and looked half-asleep. Jonny gave a start and tried to sound alert. “Yes, absolutely! A patrol out in Tynnered saw Daniel Lindgren outside the house where his mother lives at around eleven o’clock yesterday morning. It was pure coincidence that they happened to be driving past just then, but they’re certain it was him. He spotted them, too, and ran off into the forest behind the house. Obviously he knew the area well, so he managed to disappear. But we know he’s in the area; we’re stepping up the surveillance, and we’ll soon pick him up.”
Jonny sounded sure of himself, and Andersson contented himself with a nod of approval. At last there was some progress on one front.
Fredrik started to go through the developments during and after Friday’s raid in Biskopsgården, and he also reported back on what had happened over the weekend. Since this was news to everyone except Irene, he could hardly complain about a lack of interest among his audience.
“So Anders Pettersson and Heinz Becker had a mutual exchange of services. Pettersson probably got a supply of young girls, while Heinz got drugs and Viagra. The bikers aren’t necessarily involved in the brothel side of the operation, although of course they could have set up the apartment, and possibly the drugs. I spoke to Pettersson yesterday, and he said he saw the little Russian girl last Saturday night, which is nine days ago. I asked if he was sure she was Russian, and he insisted that she was.”
“But the assistant in the JC store said Heinz Becker spoke to the girl in a language that sounded like Finnish. We assumed it was Estonian; Becker spoke the language because his mother came from Estonia, but the question is, did he speak Russian? We need to find out,” Irene interjected.
“You do that,” Andersson said.
Irene ignored his comment and continued. “Pettersson thought the girl was called Tanya or Katya; he couldn’t remember which. The only trace of her we found in the apartment was a denim skirt. According to the witness in the JC store, the girl was wearing a short denim skirt when she and Becker went in to buy the black jeans. Forensics are working on the skirt right now,” Irene concluded.
Andersson’s brow was furrowed as he drummed his fingers on the desk, irritatingly out of time. “Pettersson has met the little Russian. Who is dead. He’s also met Becker. Who is dead. He’s met Becker’s sidekick. Who is dead. And he’s met the other girl. Who is in a coma and might die. As I see it, Pettersson is the only thing we have that links the whole thing together. And he’s still alive. We need to question him again,” he said firmly.
As the meeting started to break up, Andersson suddenly remembered something. “Irene, what did that guy want, the one who was looking for someone who was in charge of the investigation into Torleif’s death? I sent him along to see you and Tommy since Hannu wasn’t here.”
“His name is Stefan, and he’s Torleif’s son. We didn’t have time to speak to him, but he’s coming back after lunch. He said his father’s car had been stolen.”
“Torleif’s car has been stolen?” Andersson repeated in surprise.
“That’s what he said. I’ll find out more this afternoon.”
“Good,” the superintended muttered.
He suddenly looked very old and tired.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE meeting, Irene went along to see Linda Holm. The superintendent of the Human Trafficking Unit was deeply absorbed in something on her computer screen and didn’t notice her at first. Irene knocked gently on the doorframe. Linda’s face lit up when she saw Irene, and she immediately waved her inside.
“Hi! There have certainly been some strange developments since Friday. Both Becker and his associate are dead, and the girl is still unconscious. They’ve promised to call me from the hospital in Varberg as soon as she wakes up.”
Linda Holm shook her blonde hair and moved her head around in a way that’s supposed to be good for people who spend a lot of time working at the computer. Irene didn’t sit down because she was in a hurry. Instead she quickly went through what had emerged during the previous day’s conversation with Anders Pettersson. Linda Holm listened attentively.
“That’s interesting. Russian. She could have been, of course, but there’s also a large Russian population in Estonia. She could easily have come from there and spoken both Estonian and Russian. There are many children and young people who disappear from the slums of Russia and the Baltic countries. Not least from children’s homes; often there’s a member of staff involved. And it’s almost impossible for us to establish a child’s identity if they can’t tell us themselves. Which our little Russian can’t do, of course.”
“So that doesn’t really help us to find out where she’s from,” Irene said, finding it difficult to hide her disappointment. “Perhaps the other girl will be able to tell us something when she comes round,” she added hopefully.
“Perhaps. Since it was Heinz Becker who brought the girls here, I suspect he made them a few years older in their passports than they actually are, and I’m sure he gave them false names.”
“Sven Andersson has asked the police in Varberg to send over any papers and passports found in the wreckage of the car. I’ll make sure you get copies right away.”
As she was about to leave, Irene remembered something she had forgotten to pass on to Linda. “According to Anders Pettersson, Heinz Becker told him that the little Russian and Sergei had already gone to Tenerife. Do you know of anyone called Sergei?” she asked.
Linda Holm thought for a moment before replying. “Sergei is a common Russian name. And there are plenty of Russians involved in trafficking. Tenerife is definitely a lead; I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Do you really think they were intending to go on to Tenerife?” Irene asked.
“More than likely. Where there’s money, there’s prostitution. The clients are the most important thing. Wherever they are, the sex trade will flourish.”
“Yes, but I mean … Tenerife is a tourist destination. Families go there on vacation, and—”
“Sure. That’s the image the tourist industry wants us to see. But the fact is there’s a huge sex industry in the Canaries, both legal and not so legal. The East European mafia have established themselves very firmly on the islands. They provide whatever the clients want. As I said, the demand from the clients rules the market. If they’re ready to pay, then everything is for sale, and I mean everything.”
Irene stared at Linda Holm, not really knowing what to say. No doubt Linda was hardened and cynical after all her years with the Trafficking Unit, but on the other hand she knew what she was talking about.
Irene thanked her for her help and headed for the door. When she glanced back over her shoulder, Linda was once again absorbed in her computer screen.
“VARBERG CALLED,” ANDERSSON said. “They’ve found three passports in a bag in the car. One was in the name of Heinz Becker, and everything matches the information we already have. It looks like he was traveling under his genuine passport. The other guy who died was called Andres Tamm, according to his documentation. An Estonian citizen aged forty-two. The third passport is also Estonian, and is in the name of Leili Tamm; she’s allegedly eighteen years old. They were presumably meant to look like they were father and daughter. I’ve asked our colleagues in Varberg to send over everything they found in the car.” Andersson was walking around the room rubbing his hands with satisfaction.
“I’ve spoken to Linda Holm, and she’s going to help us find out whether this Sergei really exists, so she’d like copies of all the documents and passports when they come through,” Irene explained.
“Sure. I’ll take care of that as soon as they arrive,” the superintendent promised.
AT EXACTLY ONE o’clock the officer at reception informed Irene that she had a visitor by the name of Stefan Sandberg. She went down in the elevator to collect him. When they reached the department she asked if he’d like a coffee.
“Yes, please. I had a hamburger at McDonald’s for lunch, and I could do with something to wash it down.”
“A veggie burger?”
“A veggie …? No, an ordinary cheeseburger.”
“So you’re not a vegetarian like your dad?” Irene asked. She couldn’t help noticing the shadow that passed over his face. She didn’t say anything, but pressed the buttons on the machine to produce two cups of coffee.
They went into her office and sat down. Tommy’s desk was unoccupied; he had gone over to pathology to see if he could find out anything about the autopsy on the girl from the root cellar. Neither of them had started referring to the dead girl as either Katya or Tanya; “the little Russian” was too well established.
“There’s something I ought to clarify. I’m Torleif’s heir; he has no other close relatives. However, he wasn’t my biological father. When he and my mother got married, she was pregnant. I was born a month later, and he adopted me.”
“Right,” was the best Irene could come up with.
That explained why Stefan and Torleif bore no resemblance to each other. It was probably a picture of Torleif himself as a child that Irene had seen on his desk. Something was nagging away at the back of her mind, and eventually it managed to force its way into the light: why hadn’t there been a single photograph or anything else in the apartment to indicate that Stefan even existed? Her curiosity had been aroused, but she had no intention of asking him questions on that point just yet. He was here to report a stolen car, first and foremost.
“Am I correct in assuming you didn’t realize the car had been stolen until this weekend?” she asked instead.
“Yesterday, to be precise. I’m a doctor, and I live in Umeå. I was informed of Torleif’s death last Thursday, but I wasn’t able to fly down until Saturday. I arrived late in the afternoon; it was already dark, and I didn’t even think about the car. There was so much else …” He fell silent, looking uncomfortable.
Irene decided to follow her instincts. “Were you close?”
He shuffled even more awkwardly, and quite some time passed before he answered. “No. I wouldn’t say that. We had very little contact over the last few years.”
He looked tense, and Irene decided to leave what was clearly a very sensitive topic for the time being.
“But you’re sure he had a car? I mean if you had very little contact …” she said, deliberately leaving the question hanging in the air.
“He had a car. It was his only indulgence, really. A good car and one foreign vacation every year. And I happen to know he had a two-year-old Opel Astra. A white one.”
Stefan seemed very sure of his facts, but Irene would check with the vehicle licensing authority.
“How do you know that? The year and the make, I mean.”
“He told me. We spoke on the phone. He called me a few days before Christmas Eve, two years ago. As I said, we didn’t have much in common, so he spent most of the time talking about his new car. And these are the spare keys; I found them in the drawer of his desk.”
Two keys on a ring landed on Irene’s desk with a jangle. She noticed that the Police Sports Association emblem was on the key ring.
“Did you speak to each other after that conversation?” Irene went on, looking at the gold crown glistening on the emblem.
Stefan sighed heavily and shook his head. “No. It was the same old thing. We … quarreled and hung up on each other.”
A flush spread up toward his right cheekbone. Irene caught herself thinking how good-looking he was. The fact that Muesli wasn’t his biological father wasn’t exactly a disadvantage; quite the reverse, in her opinion. But she kept that to herself.
“What did you quarrel about?” she asked.
“The usual. My mother … he was always trying to pump me for information about her. And then he started talking crap about her, like he always did.”
“So what did he say?”
“Like I said … the usual. That she’s disloyal. That she should never have been allowed to have children. Same old same old.”
Stefan looked troubled as he talked about his last conversation with Torleif. Irene would have liked to probe further into the toxic relationship between Stefan and his adoptive father, but they were supposed to be talking about the stolen car.
Suddenly Stefan braced his shoulders and looked Irene straight in the eye. He said firmly, “No doubt you think it was unreasonable of me to break off contact with Torleif. He had no close relatives left, and he was something of a recluse. But he could be so nasty. For example, two years ago I told him I was going to be a dad. I thought he’d be happy, but instead he started going on about my mom and her bad genes, and saying that my dad—my biological father—was probably the same.”
His voice clearly revealed how difficult it was for him to talk about his fractured relationship with Torleif.
“Do you know who your real father is?” Irene asked.
He nodded. “Yes. Mom told me everything when I was fifteen. We lived in Warsaw for the first six years after the divorce. Mom thought my biological father was still living there, but it turned out that he had died the year before we moved back. It was the usual story: he was much older than her, and married. She was working as an office clerk, and he was her boss. She got pregnant. Her whole family is Catholic, so she refused to have an abortion. My biological father fired her because he was scared that she would start to show and people would guess. Her situation was desperate. She didn’t dare tell anyone in the family she was pregnant, so she answered an advertisement from someone who was looking for a wife. A Swedish man. Torleif.”
He grimaced slightly as he spoke his adoptive father’s name. Irene didn’t know what to say. Torleif had advertised for a wife in Poland, and he wasn’t the boy’s father! I wonder if Andersson knows about this, she thought. She would have to ask him.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty in April. And Amanda will be two. In April, I mean.” His face lit up when he mentioned his daughter, and the sorrowful look in his eye disappeared for a moment.
“My twin daughters will be twenty in March, but my dog will be thirteen in April,” Irene said.
They smiled at each other, and the atmosphere in the room lightened. Which was just as well because Irene realized that things could soon get tricky again. She had started to “poke her nose in,” as Andersson usually put it, so she might as well see it through.
“How long were Torleif and your mother married?” she asked.
“Four years. According to Mom, that was four years too long.”
His attractive smile faded, and the sadness returned to his eyes. There was a hint of something else too. Hatred? Anger? Fear? It was difficult to decide, but it was definitely there.
“Why did she say that? Was he abusive?”
“No … well, not physically. But mentally. The age gap was pretty wide: fourteen years. She was only twenty when I was born. He almost broke her with his controlling behavior. He gave her hardly any money, but he still insisted that it was her job to run the household. Buy food and clothes for nothing, as she used to say. She prefers not to talk about Torleif these days.”
“Do you remember anything about those years with Torleif?”
He thought for a long time before replying. “Virtually nothing. Except he beat me when he found out I’d been playing with his cars. He collected miniature police cars. But that was probably the only time he hit me; it was the final straw for Mom. She packed up her things, which included me, and we went back home to Warsaw. She told me later that she’d had to borrow money from my grandmother to pay for the journey. I’m sure my grandmother had realized that Mom wasn’t happy in her marriage over in Sweden, but even today none of my relatives in Poland knows that Torleif isn’t my real father.”
“Did you have any contact with Torleif while you were living in Poland?”
“No. None at all. Mom got a good job because she could speak and write Swedish pretty well. She worked for a Polish company, and after a few years she became their Swedish representative, which was why we moved to Stockholm. She met someone new, a Swede, and remarried. I have a half-sister who’s sixteen. And Mom is still married to the same man, still living in Stockholm. But for those first few years after we came back, she was scared. I didn’t really understand much at the time, but since then I’ve realized … she was afraid Torleif would contact us again. That he would make trouble. Which he did.”
To Irene’s surprise, he started to laugh. He could probably see what she was thinking because he quickly became serious once more.
“It’s pretty funny, thinking back on it now, but it certainly wasn’t funny at the time. He found out somehow that Mom and I had moved back to Sweden, and he managed to get a hold of her telephone number. I suppose he made use of his position as a police officer. You know more than I do about the methods of tracking people down.”
Irene nodded but didn’t say anything. She wanted him to carry on talking.
“He insisted on seeing me; he claimed he had access rights. But Mom was no longer the vulnerable little Polish girl he had taken pity on, as he used to put it. She came right back at him, told him that in that case he could pay her all those years of alimony that he owed her. And then she told him to go to hell. They argued until I said I wanted to see Torleif. I was fifteen at the time, and I still thought he was my real dad. I suppose I was yearning for a father, somewhere deep inside. I’d never really had another male role model. Except … I guess there was my grandfather and Uncle Jan, but they were back in Warsaw. And Mom’s second husband has always been good to me. But still … I suppose every child has an idealized picture of the parent who isn’t around. If only we could get to know each other, then everything would be terrific.”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows, a wry expression on his face.
“I guess you know what happened. I caught the train from Stockholm to Göteborg, all by myself. Full of anticipation. It was the beginning of July, and all the way there I dreamed about what a great time we were going to have. Me and my dad. We’d go to the amusement park at Liseberg. Get a hamburger. Drive out to the sea and go swimming. Go to a soccer match. That particular weekend an English league team was playing against IFK Göteborg at Ullevi. I was desperately hoping he’d bought tickets for the game because I’d told him about it when we spoke on the phone the previous day. Eventually I managed to convince myself he’d definitely gotten those tickets.”
He stopped for a moment, and Irene thought his eyes looked suspiciously shiny, and it wasn’t with happiness or laughter. She could tell that from his voice as he went on.
“He met me at the main train station. No hug to welcome me. Just a formal handshake. Then we went to his apartment and he cooked some kind of lentil burger. I nearly threw up. Do I need to say that there was no soccer game, no trip to Liseberg? We did go up to Delsjö for a swim, but that was all. I remember it was lovely up there, and I bought three hot dogs from a guy who was selling them from a little kiosk. I bought them in secret, when Torleif was in the water. Fortunately Mom had given me some money; after all, she knew Torleif, and she had a good idea how things would be.”
He paused again, then continued. “When I got back to Stockholm I tried to keep up appearances and said it had been great to see my dad. But Mom saw right through me, of course. She took me to one side and told me the truth. She showed me the adoption papers. Father unknown, it says. She’s never told anyone who my real father is; only she and I know. Even today she still says she regrets having let me go through with that visit to Göteborg, not telling me before I left. But the fact is, I was relieved when I found out the truth—that Torleif wasn’t my biological father, and that I never had to see him again if I didn’t want to. And I certainly didn’t want to!” He looked very determined as he finished speaking.
“Did you never see each other again?” Irene asked.
“Yes. Just once, when I came down to Göteborg to see Bruce Springsteen a few years ago. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, was traveling from Malmö, where she lived, and we’d arranged to meet at the central station. I had a few hours to spare, and I called Torleif on a whim. We met in a coffee bar, and the first thing I did was to tell him I knew he wasn’t my father. He didn’t seem to care. And I think we both realized we didn’t have anything else to say to each other. He used to call me occasionally after that; the last time was just before Christmas two years ago, as I said. And we quarreled as usual.”
Stefan leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. The amber-colored eyes gazed steadily at Irene.
“I know I don’t have to tell you all this crap, but somehow I have a feeling that it’s important for you to know how things were. And perhaps it was important for me to be able to tell you. Maybe I should have spoken to a therapist before I became a father myself, but this is much cheaper.”
He grinned to show that he was joking, but those amber eyes told the truth. They revealed a little boy who had had a really tough time when he was growing up. In spite of that he had survived and succeeded in building a future for himself and his family. Irene had come across many children like that over the years: survivors in spite of everything.
“I really appreciate the fact that you’ve confided in me. I knew who Torleif was when he worked in the third district, but I never got to know him on a personal level. I suppose the age difference had something to do with that,” she said, smiling back at Stefan.
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“How long are you staying?” Irene asked to break the silence.
“Until Thursday. I spoke to a funeral director this morning, and I’ve made all the necessary arrangements. Now I need to deal with his estate and put the apartment on the market. All those practical things that have to be done when someone dies. The funeral is in three weeks; I’ll come back down then.”
“I’ll put out a call for the car. I can get the license plate number from records.”
They both got to their feet at the same time and shook hands as they said goodbye. Irene gave him her card in case he needed to contact her.
“THAT’S VERY STRANGE,” was the superintendent’s response when Irene had finished a brief summary of her conversation with Stefan Sandberg.
“So you didn’t know that Torleif wasn’t the boy’s real father?”
Andersson shook his head. “No. Quite the opposite. He used to boast about the fact that he’d already gotten her pregnant before they were married. He always claimed they had to get married. When they split up he said it wasn’t right, that she’d run off back to Poland so he didn’t get to see his son. I remember telling him to go over there and visit the boy. I mean, Warsaw isn’t exactly on the other side of the world. But then he complained about how expensive it was to travel. He could be a real miser, to be honest. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but it’s true. I suppose that’s one of the reasons why we gradually lost touch …”
Andersson left the sentence hanging in the air as he stared blankly out of the window. Outside there was nothing but a compact darkness, broken only by the lights of the city. The weather forecast had promised rising temperatures, but there was also the risk of further snow or rain. Irene loved clean, white snow, but in the city it soon became black and filthy. The thought of rain on top of all that snow made her shudder. The whole lot would turn into a black, slushy mess.
Andersson glanced wearily at her. “What do you think about this business of the stolen car?” he asked.
“Presumably some thief was keeping an eye on the area and noticed that the car hadn’t moved from its parking space. It is pretty new, after all.”
The superintendent nodded, but didn’t really seem to be listening to her answer. His mind was clearly elsewhere. What was wrong?
As if he’d noticed her concern, he said, “I’ll be in a little later than usual tomorrow. After ten. I’ve got a check up.”
His curt tone left no scope for questions. Irene was worried, with good reason. Andersson wasn’t exactly blessed with an iron constitution. He was overweight, and suffered from asthma, high blood pressure and vascular cramps, among other things. Had one of his ailments gotten worse in some way? Or had he developed something new? The questions were on the tip of her tongue, but she was sensible enough to hold back. He wouldn’t like it if she asked. She might find out eventually.
“We’ll have a meeting after lunch tomorrow. By then we should have the autopsy report on the little Russian. Can you let the others know, please?” He waved his hand as if to indicate that the audience was over. It wasn’t like him to be distracted and dismissive. There was obviously something on his mind.