Ewert knew all this wouldn’t help. He could send the hacks miles away to utterly pointless press conferences, but they still wouldn’t leave anyone in peace.
An Eastern European prostitute who has been beaten up and then takes hostages in the hospital where she’s being treated – it was a red-hot story.
They would hang on until the bitter end.
One of the three emergency surgery theatres near the Casualty entrance had been designated centre of police operations. Two of the theatres were in regular use, but were free at the moment, and the third was on stand-by, fully equipped, but rarely used. After much pushing and shoving, the once sterile tables now served as temporary desks and the members of the operational command group, never fewer than three and never more than five, had already found themselves special places to sit.
Ewert had to use threats, and then more threats, against the telephone company to extract the number of the mobile phone used to contact the police on the emergency number. The number was ex-directory, but was registered to the man who had made the phone call, a senior registrar called Gustaf Ejder. Ewert printed the number in colour and put it up on the wall, next to the number of a stationary phone in the mortuary that was already hanging there.
His place was at what had been a surgical trolley, jammed in between two stainless-steel cabinets. He had been waiting and drinking coffee from paper cups for almost two hours, and he was getting impatient.
‘She’s winding us up.’
Nobody heard him. Maybe it helped to say it out loud.
‘Maybe she knows exactly what she’s doing. Knows that silence will stress us out. Or maybe she’s packed it in, realises it’s all going to pot and can’t take any more.’
He drained the latest paper cup, scrunched it up and started to pace about the room, glancing now and then at Sven in the far corner, where he was seated at one end of another trolley. Sven had had a phone glued to his ear.
‘Ewert, that was Еgestam on the line, just back from a meeting with Errfors about the autopsy. He said he’d like to do Hilding Oldйus as soon as possible. This afternoon, preferably. Then he became curious and wanted to know what we were up to. He had heard about the alert and the evacuation and must have a fair idea that this is something pretty big.’
Ewert stopped in the middle of the room and threw the crumpled paper cup hard against the wall.
‘That little creep! He reckons this case smells big, prosecution-wise. Good for his career, so now he wants in on it. But when we ask him to hold Lang he’s not so keen. Mafia hitmen who beat junkies to death, oh dear! Not such good material for interviews.’
Ewert didn’t like Lars Еgestam.
Generally speaking, he had no time for the young public prosecutors, all prissy hairdos and shiny shoes, kids with no experience, only university degrees, but who could still tell him what was permissible evidence or sufficient grounds for a charge. He and Еgestam had locked horns and come to dislike each other about a year ago, when Еgestam had been appointed as head of investigation in a case involving sexual abuse of minors. Еgestam had performed to the cameras after each day in court, and had been repeatedly told to go to hell and stay there by Grens. Since then, the wannabe leading prosecutor had been obstructive on several occasions and they had continued to shout at each other. This time he swallowed his irritation. When he walked away from Lydia Grajauskas’s empty hospital bed almost two hours ago, he had already realised that having to put up with Еgestam was a distinct possibility. The Grajauskas affair would be right up the young prosecutor’s street, with the promise of plenty of publicity, and he would surely bow and scrape and brown-nose whoever he needed to, to be seconded to this case.
Ewert paced up and down under the intrusive overhead glare. The harsh strip lights were powerful enough to illuminate surgery, but were just annoying now. He waved crossly upwards. As if that would help.
Sven Sundkvist sat quietly in his corner of the room, resting his hands on the trolley desk and pretending not to notice Ewert’s pacing and waving.
‘Don’t you see, Ewert, history is repeating itself. Grajauskas is driven by shame, just like Oldйus. Do you see what I mean? Shame is what motivates her actions.’
‘Sven, not again. Not now.’
‘Do you remember what we found in the bathroom cabinet at Völund Street? The vodka and Rohypnol? What do you think they were for? She needed to switch off too. She was ashamed, couldn’t bear to face herself.’
Ewert deliberately turned his back on Sven and asked a question. ‘How long has she been down there now?’
‘You do actually understand, don’t you? They humiliate her over and over again. She hates what is happening to her, but has to carry on. In a way she allows it to happen, but wants nothing to do with it. She tries to live with her shame, but it’s impossible, of course.’
Ewert didn’t turn round, only slammed his fist into the wall and almost screamed out his question. ‘I asked how long? Sven, you heard me. For how long has that woman been threatening to kill five people who she just happened to come across? Answer me!’
Sven took a couple of deep breaths, looked up and turned his head towards the man who was shouting at him. He sighed. Then he checked the clock next to the phone on his trolley.
‘It is one hour and fifty-three minutes since Control received her call.’
‘How long has she been down there?’
‘Our guess is about two hours and twenty minutes. Her guard had a pretty good idea of what time it was when she knocked him down. The lunchtime news had just started when she went to the toilet. Say she spent a few minutes there. Add the few minutes it took to ask him to come along and then attack him. We’ve timed a slow walk to the mortuary and added it all up. I would say that she has been down there for two hours and twenty minutes, give or take.’
Ewert stared at his watch.
‘Two hours and twenty minutes in a closed room, with hostages, but no demands. True, she asked for Bengt, so she can communicate in Russian. Since then nothing but long, bloody suffocating silence. She knows that we’re getting tense. Let’s turn the tables.’
When Ewert had realised that a command group was required for this operation, he had instantly decided that Sven must be at his side, as well as Edvardson from the national force. Next he contacted Homicide and asked for Hermansson, the young female locum with a broad Skеne dialect. He had seen before that she was careful and systematic and now she had proved to be tough as well. She hadn’t batted an eyelid at the Oldйus interrogation when he tried to provoke her, thrusting his crotch and shouting insults, nor when she gave the little drug-crazed idiot a hard slap.
The four of them made up the core command group. He turned to Hermansson, whose desk space was at the other end of Sven’s trolley.
‘I want you to ring Vodafone. I’ve already told the suit in their marketing department that they have to comply with our every wish. Tell them to block that woman’s bloody mobile. No outgoing calls. None. Next, phone the hospital switchboard and tell them to do the same to the land line they have down there in corpse city. That should do it.’