‘Take the hospital guard’s account. He mentions a woman who walked past and went into the toilet at the end of the corridor just before Grajauskas went in. From his description, I’m sure it was her friend Alena Sljusareva.’
He listened to her and remembered this morning, when he had praised her and then felt awkward, weak and exposed. He hadn’t quite understood why, still didn’t. He wasn’t normally laughed at by young women.
‘The next statement I read was given by the two lads who were sitting next to Grajauskas, watching the lunchtime news. One of them remembers the same woman going by and his description is identical to that of the guard. A perfect description of Alena Sljusareva again. I’m positive.’
Hermansson had brought a folder full of papers, a twenty-four-hour-old investigation into a murder and a suicide in a hospital mortuary. She handed it to him.
‘It was her, Grens. Sljusareva supplied Grajauskas with the firearm and explosives, I’m sure. In other words, she is an accessory to aggravated kidnap and murder. We’ll find her soon. She has got nowhere to go.’
Ewert took the folder and cleared his throat. The young detective was already walking away.
‘Look, Hermansson.’
She stopped.
‘By the way. You’re the second policewoman I’ve praised. And I ought to do it again, it seems.’
She shook her head.
‘Thanks. But that’s enough for now.’
She started to walk away again, when he asked her to wait. One more question.
‘What you said this morning. Am I to take it that you think I have a problem with female officers?’
‘Yes. That’s what I meant.’
Not a moment’s hesitation. She was as calm and matter-of-fact as ever, and he felt just as exposed.
He took the point, though, and remembered Anni.
He cleared his throat again and got himself a coffee from the machine. He needed the simplicity of it, black and hot in a plastic cup. It calmed him down and he pressed for a refill. He knew why he had a problem with female officers. With women in general. Twenty-five years. That was how long it was since he had held a woman in his arms. He could hardly remember what it felt like, but knew he missed it, what he couldn’t remember.
One more.
He drank the last coffee slowly. Mustn’t allow himself more than three, so better savour the peaceful feeling it gave him. He sipped and swallowed and sipped and swallowed until he realised that he was still holding the photographs.
He glanced at them, certain that they’d do the trick.
Lisa Öhrström replied after five rings.
‘One hour exactly. You’re very punctual.’
‘Please go to your fax.’
He heard her walk down the corridor, visualised the layout of the ward and knew where she was standing.
‘All right?’
‘Coming through.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t understand what it is you want.’
‘Describe what you see.’
He waited.
She sighed. He waited until she was ready to speak.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘You’re the doctor. Look at the pictures. What do you see?’
Lisa Öhrström was silent. He could hear her breathing, but she said nothing.
‘Come on. What do you see?’
‘It’s a hand, a left hand, with three fractured fingers.’
‘The thumb. Is that right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Five thousand kronor.’
‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand.’
‘Index finger is one thousand, little finger is one thousand.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘Jochum Lang’s rates and his trademark. The photo was taken by a technician during an investigation into a case of GBH, which was later dropped. This guy, with a pretty useless hand, owed seven thousand kronor. One of Lang’s victims. That’s how he operates, the man you are protecting. And he’ll carry on doing this kind of thing for as long as people like you protect him.’
He said nothing more, just waited for a while before putting the receiver down. She would sit there with the three broken fingers in front of her until he got in touch again. A door opened along the corridor and Ewert turned to look. Sven was hurrying towards him with swift footsteps.
‘Ewert, they phoned just now.’
Ewert sat down on top of the fax. His leg ached the way it sometimes did and he didn’t register the machine’s thin plastic cover creaking under his weight. Sven did, but couldn’t be bothered to say anything. He looked at his boss.
‘From the ferry port. A Russian interpreter is on the way.’
‘And?’
‘She was about to board the boat to Lithuania.’
Ewert waved his arms about impatiently.
‘What’s this about?’
‘Alena Sljusareva. They’ve arrested her, just minutes ago.’
They had talked about it so many times.
He had sat with Bengt in interview rooms and pubs, in Bengt’s garden or sitting room, and time and again they had ended up talking about the truth and agreed that when all is said and done, it’s bloody simple, there’s the truth and the rest is lies. And truth is the only thing that people can bear to live with in the long run. Everything else is bullshit.
Lies feed on each other, one lie leads to another and then to another, until you’re so hopelessly caught up in the tangle that you no longer recognise the truth, even when that is all you have.
Their friendship had been built on this respect for the truth, their shared belief that you should always dare to say what you think, even when it saps your strength or undermines your position. Now and then, when one of them realised that the other was being evasive, maybe keeping quiet out of kindness, they would have a row, shout at each other, slam the door to the corridor shut and only open it again when everything had come out – the truth.
Ewert shuddered. What a bloody lie! How had he believed that he and Bengt shared the truth and nothing but the truth?
He sat hunched over his desk, his thoughts circling a video that he had carried around for the best part of a day and night, only to let it sink to the bottom of Lake Mдlaren.
And now I’m lying.
Lying for Lena’s sake.
The plain truth.
I’m lying in order to protect your lie.
Ewert Grens pulled over a cardboard box that was sitting on the edge of his desk. He leaned forward, opened the lid and peered inside. The contents belonged to Alena Sljusareva. She had been arrested a few hours earlier by two policemen, who had also impounded all she carried with her.
Ewert turned the box upside down. Her life scattered over his desk. Nothing much to it, only the essentials for someone on the run. He picked over her possessions, one by one.
A money clip with a few thousand kronor, her pay for opening her legs twelve times a day for three years.
A diary. He broke the lock and leafed through it. Cyrillic letters making up lots of words he didn’t understand.
A pair of sunglasses. Cheap plastic, the kind you buy when you have to.
A mobile phone. The model was quite up to date, more functions than anyone could ever cope with.
A single ticket for the ferry from Stockholm to Klaipeda for today, 6 June. He checked his watch. The ticket had ceased to be valid.
He started putting her life back in the box, read the chain-of-custody list, signed it and put it in with the rest.
Ewert knew more than he wanted to. Now he had to interrogate her. And she would repeat exactly the things he didn’t want to hear. So he would listen and forget, tell her to pack her bag and go home.
For Lena’s sake. Not for you. But for her.
He rose, followed the corridors to the lift that would take him to the custody cells. The duty officer was expecting him and led the way to the cell where Alena had spent the last hour and a half. The officer used the small square hole in the door to check on the prisoner. She was sitting on the narrow bunk, doubled up, her head resting on her knees. Her long dark hair almost reached the floor.