‘Wahasha. Operation Wahasha.’
Just as Sara had almost reached the station in Solna, Hedin called to say she was back, forcing Sara to return to the neighbourhood of Södermalm that she had just left. But instead of using the route through the tattoo parlour, she followed Hedin’s instructions and entered a café on Erstagatan called Spuntino, asked for a latte to go and then said she was there to see Eva. Hedin wanted to support this pleasant little café, hence the coffee order. With a paper cup containing her latte in her hand, Sara was let out the back and was once again able to cross the large courtyard to Hedin’s kitchen window.
The fact that more or less all the business owners on the block seemed to know about Hedin and her secrecy made Sara wonder how effective her cautious measures really were. But, as ever, curiosity overcame her scepticism.
‘Wahasha? What does that mean?’ she said once she was seated in Hedin’s kitchen with the curtains drawn and the radio switched on to add an obstacle to anyone listening in.
‘Beast,’ said Hedin. ‘Or monster.’
‘In?’
‘Arabic.’
‘And Rau was Faust?’
‘So says my contact.’
Slowly, the person Sara was searching for began to take shape. Now she at least knew who was who.
‘And this Operation Beast was something that Rau was involved in?’ said Sara.
‘In the eighties. And it was so secret that my contact didn’t even want to say the name at first, despite the fact that he didn’t know what the operation was. But it was apparently meant to be something quite extraordinary.’
‘Is it still live?’
‘No. Not according to him.’
‘Then how can it still be so important that Rau is prepared to kill to keep it secret? What awful things did they do back then? Are there any unsolved terrorist attacks?’
‘Perhaps it was what he did to prepare for it?’ said Hedin. ‘There are still a lot of secrets from that time that would shake the world if they became known. Both sides did things they’d rather didn’t come out.’
‘Why an Arabic name?’ Sara said, thinking aloud.
‘They were very pro-Palestinian.’
‘And now Palestine is back under discussion,’ said Sara. ‘With Israel beginning to warm up relations with some Arab states. That means the Palestinians lose influence. Might that be what’s triggered all this?’
‘Who knows? The bombs that Geiger was trying to help detonate were looked after by Palestinian interests at one point.’
‘Have you Googled it? Wahasha?’
‘Yes, it’s a character in some computer game if I’ve understood correctly and lots of youngsters are using it as their handles on social media. But there’s no connection to terrorist acts or the eighties so far as I can see.’
They sat in silence, each thinking. They didn’t seem to have got much further.
Sara wondered whether she should say something or not, but eventually she told Hedin about the gunshots in the apartment and insisted that she didn’t tell anybody anything about it. As usual, Hedin said: ‘Who would I tell?’
But she took the threat of the gunshots with the utmost seriousness. She urged Sara to take all the security precautions she could. Close the curtains, never come and go at the same times, don’t take the same route to work, preferably stay somewhere else for a while, and above all get her family out of there.
‘If they had wanted to kill me, they surely would have done it already,’ Sara countered, realising that she was trying more than anything to persuade herself. ‘They probably wanted to scare me – but it just made me really angry. Otherwise I might have let all this go, but now I don’t intend to give in. They could have hurt my family – Olle was at home. So I’m going to put away the person who did this. No matter what it bloody costs.’
The doorbell rang and Sara was interrupted in the middle of her fiery speech.
‘Are you armed?’ said Hedin, looking her in the eye.
‘Yes,’ Sara said gravely.
‘I’m joking,’ said Hedin. ‘It’s probably just the postman.’
The old woman went to open the door and Sara pricked up her ears in the direction of the hall, feeling a little on edge.
‘Hi, Sofia – I’m the chair of the tenant-owners association,’ said a chirpy woman’s voice in the echoing stairwell.
‘Hello.’
‘Er, we’ve tried emailing you. A lot. You haven’t paid the service charge. For several months, as it happens.’
‘I’ve been away.’
‘Oh, right, but the lights have been on in your windows.’
‘I’ve been in Berlin.’
‘OK. But now you’re home. And I don’t know if you’re having problems with your online banking or what, but you do need to pay your rent.’
‘I will.’
‘Today.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Then . . .’ The chirpy voice lowered a few octaves. ‘Then you might actually get evicted. Even if you’re an owner in a tenant co-op, you can be evicted if you don’t pay the service charge. And no one wants that. But you do have to do the right thing. It’s about respect for your neighbours. If no one paid their service charge we wouldn’t be able to look after the building. The association would go bankrupt.’
Sara was surprised by this trait suddenly exposed in her seemingly prim retired professor. She looked around the kitchen and couldn’t help noticing a heap of envelopes on the kitchen table.
Bill, bill, debt collector, debt collector, debt collector.
A little shaken, Sara was still clutching the envelopes when Hedin returned.
‘My apologies. People lose their minds when places turn co-op.’
‘Sorry for prying, but what’s this?’ said Sara, holding up the heap of envelopes.
‘Bills. They’ll have to wait. It’s not as if Telia, Fortum and Visa are exactly impoverished.’
‘But why haven’t you paid?’
‘I needed money for my trip to Berlin. Flights and accommodation.’
‘Why don’t you have any money?’
Sara heard how stupid the question sounded, but Hedin didn’t seem to react.
‘I don’t have grants any longer, so I have to underwrite my own research.’
‘Don’t you have a pension?’
‘It doesn’t go far. I have to remunerate my sources. Some of them charge handsomely. And I have to travel. There’s nothing left. If my computer dies then I’m done for.’
‘But . . .’ Sara was completely dumbfounded. Then she made a decision. It was really a very easy decision. ‘Is the service charge here too?’ she said, flicking through the pile. There were three bills marked as service charges.
‘I’ll take these,’ she said.
‘Then I won’t be able to pay them,’ Hedin objected.
‘I’ll pay. And I’ll take the others too.’
‘Not on my life.’
‘As payment for your work.’
‘I don’t work on commission.’
‘OK, then you can pay me back when you can. If you like. But you can’t be evicted.’
Sara put the envelopes in her bag to indicate that the matter was closed. Hedin shrugged.
‘If they want to evict me then let them. If I’m to believe my source in Berlin, we have far worse things to worry about than unpaid service charges.’