It was almost ten o’clock in the evening when Mona hit the button to turn off the recording device in the interrogation room.
“Is there anything you’d like to add?” she said.
“I thought we were done,” said John.
“We are. But I’m wondering whether there’s anything you’d like to say just to me.”
John drank the last of the coffee in the white mug adorned with the police force emblem and met her intense eyes across the table.
“No. I think I’ve covered most of it. Although I may have forgotten the odd detail—Elin Falk told us a lot.”
“Yes, she most certainly did.”
John heard the sarcasm in her voice and realized that Mona doubted the story he had just given her.
“It’s quite the package you’ve brought me,” she said, as she poured a refill into her own mug. “All neatly wrapped up in gift paper and solving three murders. And it all rests on the testimony of a woman who is dead and can’t confirm her statement.”
“Don’t forget the forensic evidence,” he reminded her.
“No, of course not. We’ve got that too,” Mona said, without displaying any great enthusiasm.
John tried to relax. He thought about Alicia Bjelke, who was being questioned by Ruben in another room inside the police station. Together, they were two witnesses who could independently confirm Elin Falk’s confession. Alicia had already proven she could be trusted. John had left her alone in the apartment at Norrstrand while he’d taken the car to the house in Skattkärr to hide Elin’s photographs and the camera with the video from Löfbergs. When he’d returned, she’d still been in the armchair rehearsing her testimony.
John’s passivity to the suicide hadn’t been mentioned by Alicia again, and he was grateful for that. Elin Falk’s bleeding throat would probably haunt him for the rest of his life anyway.
“Well, if we’re done then . . .” he said as he stood up.
Mona gestured to indicate that he should sit back down. Her eyes were more sad than hostile as she pulled a pair of blue latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. She reached across the table, took his coffee mug, and put it inside a transparent plastic bag. Then she sealed it and put it in her shoulder bag, which was hanging from the back of her chair.
“What are you doing?” John said in bafflement.
“I’m afraid that’s probably a question you need to put to yourself,” she replied gravely.
“What do you mean?”
“Your saliva is on this mug. What do you think will happen if I send it to NFC in Linköping and ask the lab to compare your DNA with the skin found under the nails of the body at Bergvik?”
John put his hands to his ears. The voices of calamity were back and bellowing with such force that his head was pounding.
“Well, I’ll tell you what’ll happen,” Mona said. “It’ll be a one hundred percent match—and then we’ll have found a direct link between you and Stanislaw Panufnik.”
“I don’t know why you think—”
“Stop it!” Mona roared. “I know it was your car in the video from outside the shopping mall.”
Of course, John thought to himself. He felt sweat appearing on his brow. Mona had watched the original footage from the CCTV cameras. He’d been a fool to think she would settle for his report.
“I was primarily interested in people’s patterns of movement, but the license plates didn’t match the stolen Peugeot plates in the file. So I ran a new search and there it was. Your car. A 2019 Chrysler, right?”
John swallowed and stared at the table.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mona.”
“You can tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
He shook his head. “I need to think this through first.”
“Great. You sleep on it, and I’ll make sure the mug gets to Linköping in the meantime.”
She slung her bag over her shoulder and stood up.
“No, wait. Don’t go.”
Mona looked at him for a long time before sitting back down again.
“I’m waiting,” she said when the silence began to become protracted.
When John still didn’t open his mouth, she leaned forward until her face was just a few inches from his.
“I also checked the list of service weapons handed in after the chief commissioner requested everything be test-fired. Your name wasn’t there, which got me wondering about the pistol in Birger Falk’s Volvo. Perhaps you have some thoughts about how it ended up there.”
John shook his head again.
“Okay, I understand,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you what I think—which is that it was your gun we found in Falk’s glove compartment. But perhaps I’m totally off the mark. In that case, you need only show me your service weapon. Are you able to do that?”
“No, I can’t,” John acknowledged.
“Because . . .”
“It’s at home in my gun cabinet.”
Mona slammed the table with her fist.
“Wrong answer! Try again!”
John let out a deep sigh.
“Because it’s at NFC in Linköping.”
“Exactly,” said Mona, straightening up without dropping her gaze from him.
“You’re right about everything and I know it looks bad,” said John. “If I tell you, you’ve got to listen with an open mind and look at the bigger picture.”
Mona nodded. “Sure—I want to know the lay of the land before I do anything,” she said, putting her bag down on the floor.
She seemed to be ready for the truth, and John decided to give it to her. Not that he had much choice in the matter, but still.
For ten minutes, he spoke almost without interruption. About the Nigerian drug cartel and the hitmen who had been after him. About Trevor and the shooting on the roof of the Bergvik mall. About the deal he’d made with Ganiru after his friend’s death. And finally: about the attempt to manipulate the investigation to avoid a prison sentence.
Mona interjected with an occasional question here and there, but otherwise kept her word and listened attentively. When John was done, she pushed her chair back and stretched out her legs under the table.
“Well, well. What do you think we should do now?” she said.
“That’s your call,” said John. “I can only plead with you. If a prosecutor files charges, journalists will be all over the story. When news that I’m alive reaches Baltimore, all hell will break loose. Ganiru will ensure I’m dead within forty-eight hours, even if I’m in a cell.”
“How would he find out? You’ll be charged under your new identity: Fredrik Adamsson.”
“It doesn’t matter. Ganiru knows my name in Sweden and the rest of the gang will recognize the photos. My deal included me keeping a low profile so that no one would question whether Ganiru had really killed me. Being charged with manslaughter and ending up on the front pages is the direct opposite of that.”
“What about the insurance policy?” said Mona. “If you die, the video will be shared and Ganiru will be charged with murdering a police officer.”
“It won’t offer me any protection any longer. Ganiru has lost face, which means he has to punish the rat who squealed on him—once and for all. I know how it works in those circles. He’d rather continue running his business from jail than lose respect.”
Mona stood up and began to pace back and forth in the small room. She swore quietly and John could only imagine what was going through her head—how she must be twisting and turning the moral dilemma he had forced her to grapple with. Either she followed the rules and put him in mortal danger, or she closed the investigation, breaking both the law and the police code of honor.
John glanced at the shoulder bag on the floor, conscious that his life now depended on a coffee mug.
“If something were to happen to you, then I assume your FBI friends would kick up a big fuss,” Mona said.
John didn’t reply, but he was glad she was following that line of thought. If someone in witness protection got murdered, that was a failure in the eyes of the bureau—regardless of circumstances. The liability would land with National Crime and Mona’s bosses would obviously pass that shit on to her.
“Don’t think for a second that I give a damn about the Yanks,” she said. “They can say whatever they like and the same goes for the paper pushers in Stockholm. I’m sixty this spring—if the shoe doesn’t fit then they can pay me off.”
She sat back down at the table.
“Tell me more about the infiltration. How long were you involved?”
“Almost a year,” said John. “Day and night. It messes with your head after a while. It gets hard to separate the role you’re playing from the person you actually are.”
“Do you think it was worth it?” said Mona. “Taking risks like that, I mean.”
“With hindsight, no. Ganiru only got seven years and the assignment ruined my life.”
Mona left her seat and began once again to pace around the interrogation room. The same loop over and over. From the window via the table to the door and back again.
John shut his eyes, no longer making any attempt to shut out the voices of calamity. They were part of him—part of what life had made of him—and he had no choice but to accept them.
When he opened his eyes, Mona was standing in front of him, her shoulder bag in her hand. She opened it and held up the bag containing the mug.
“You can have this back on two conditions. One: when this investigation is closed, you’re to submit your resignation from the force. Two: leave the country and never come back.”
“Absolutely. You have my word,” said John.
Mona smiled grimly and shook her head.
“I’m afraid I don’t ascribe much value to your word. But remember this: the skin sample is still at NFC. If you break our deal then I can request new DNA samples from you at any time to run a comparison.”
“Totally understood.”
“Good—then we understand each other,” she said, handing the mug to John. “Here you go. You’ll have to clean it yourself.”