‘You’re pulling our leg, Nadja,’ Alm said, shaking his head. ‘What about all those bags our bank robbers haul away with them? How do you explain those?’
‘Danielsson must have been the richest pisshead in the world,’ Bäckström said. He must have been, surely? he thought.
‘Low-denomination notes,’ Nadja said. ‘Probably hundreds, on average. If you fill our box with hundred-kronor notes, you might get a million in there. If you fill it with twenties, there’s hardly room for three hundred thousand.’
‘So the bastard could have had half a billion in his fucking safe-deposit box?’ Bäckström said, completely fascinated in spite of himself.
‘I don’t imagine so for a second,’ Nadja said, shaking her head. ‘I think he had at most eight million in there. To answer your question, Bäckström, I don’t think he was the richest pisshead in the world. But on the other hand, I do know that many of the world’s richest men are pissheads.’
‘Which means that he could have taken out five million or so last week,’ Annika Carlsson said. Back to his flat, she thought. In a case that he placed in his living room, on top of the television.
‘If we’re talking about a briefcase or attaché case of the most common sort, and — from the descriptions I’ve seen — that’s what we’re dealing with here, then it wouldn’t have room for five million in thousand-kronor notes,’ Nadja said. ‘All these calculations are based on assumptions, of course,’ she said. ‘But I’ve come up with the following calculations, if you want to hear them.’
‘I’m happy to hear them,’ Toivonen said with a contented smile.
‘Well, to start with, I’m assuming he was there to take out some money,’ Nadja said. ‘Obviously he might have removed something else, written notes or something, but I’ve assumed he was taking out money.
‘Then I’m assuming that we’re dealing with thousand-kronor notes, in bundles of a hundred thousand, the same as we actually found in the box. And I’m assuming that he put them in a case matching the most common sort of attaché case.’
‘So how much does it come to?’ Toivonen said, for some reason grinning at Bäckström.
‘Three million maximum,’ Nadja said. ‘But even then you’d have to pack them very carefully, so I think it was less than that. Maybe a couple million,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But all this is pure speculation, you understand.’
‘Has anyone checked if Niemi’s bought a new car?’ Stigson said, grinning at the others.
‘Careful, lad,’ Toivonen said, glaring at him. ‘You mentioned his business, Nadja. How much money did he have in there, then?’
‘According to the annual accounts, it has a taxable capital sum of about twenty million,’ Nadja said. ‘It’s worth remembering that this is a limited company with the smallest permitted amount of share capital, a hundred thousand kronor. With Danielsson as its managing director, chairman of the board, and sole owner. The other board member is his old friend Mario Grimaldi, and the co-opted member, Roland Stålhammar.’
‘Who’d have thought it?’ Toivonen said with a crooked smile. ‘So how much is just hot air?’ he went on.
‘I’ve found ten million,’ Nadja said. ‘Shares, bonds, other valuable documents in the company’s boxes with the SE Bank and Carnegie. The other ten million are supposed to be in foreign accounts, but because I haven’t got the paperwork I need from the prosecutor in order to be able to ask them, I don’t know. I’d guess that the money’s actually there. These annual accounts seem to have been compiled with scrupulous regard to the letter of the law. No, the real problem is something else.’
‘What’s that, then?’ Toivonen asked.
‘His accounting. We haven’t got his accounting records. He’s obliged to keep them for ten years, but we haven’t been able to find any documentation at all,’ Nadja concluded with a shrug.
‘This almost sounds like something we should hand over to the Financial Crime Unit,’ Toivonen said.
‘That’s what I think too,’ Nadja said. ‘If you want me to have time to do anything else, we’re going to have to.’
‘Okay, that’s what we’ll do. Write me a summary and I’ll get it sorted at once,’ Toivonen said. ‘One more question: When did Danielsson start making all this money?’
‘In the last six or seven years,’ Nadja said. ‘Before that his company wasn’t much to boast about. But six, seven years ago things started to go better and better. It earned a couple million each year on various investments, shares, bonds, options, and other sources, and with interest and the interest on the interest his assets have at least kept up with the rise of the stock market.’
‘Interesting,’ Toivonen said, getting up. ‘It looks like Danielsson wasn’t just your average pisshead,’ he said. For some reason he smiled and nodded toward Bäckström.
29.
‘Have we got anything else?’ Bäckström asked, glaring at the space left by Toivonen as he went.
‘There’s the stuff you asked me to look into, boss,’ Felicia Pettersson said, holding her hand up politely. ‘The idea that there was something odd about that paperboy. The one who found the body, Septimus Akofeli. I think I’ve worked out what it is. The odd thing, I mean. I went through his phone list, and I uncovered quite a bit that contradicts what he told us when we interviewed him.’
Who’d have thought it? Bäckström thought. So the pretty little darkie had come out of her shell. Even if she was still wet behind the ears.
‘What was it, then?’ said Bäckström, who wanted to go off to the bathroom and drink a few liters of cold water and take a couple more paracetamol and a little mint mouthwash on top. Maybe he could get away from this madhouse and get back home to his cozy abode, where the fridge and cupboards were once again stocked to their old standard.
‘Akofeli had a pay-as-you-go phone,’ Felicia Pettersson said. ‘The sort of cell where no one knows who the subscriber is. On Thursday, May fifteenth, when Danielsson was found, he made ten calls in total. The first one was at six minutes past six in the morning, when he calls the emergency number. That conversation lasted about three minutes — one hundred and ninety-two seconds, to be precise,’ she said, nodding toward the sheet of paper in her hand. ‘Immediately after that, at nine minutes past six, he calls another number, belonging to another pay-as-you-go cell. The call was ended after fifteen seconds, when the voice mail clicked in. Then he called the same number again, and that call is also terminated after fifteen seconds. Then a minute passes before he dials the same number for a third time. That call is ended after five seconds. At eleven minutes past six, to be precise, and that’s what’s interesting.’
‘Why?’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘What is it that makes it so interesting?’
‘That’s when our first patrol entered the building at number one Hasselstigen. I get the impression that when Akofeli heard someone coming, he ended the call and put his cell away.’
‘What about the other calls, then?’ Bäckström said, making an effort to look as sharp as anyone could with the hangover he had.
‘At nine o’clock or so he called his work to say that he was going to be late,’ Pettersson said, for some reason looking at Annika Carlsson.
‘He asked me for permission before he called,’ Carlsson confirmed with a nod.
‘The next call was also to his work. He made the call just before he left Hasselstigen.’
First one call to the police, then three to some damn pay-as-you-go cell, then two to work. One plus three plus two makes... Yes, what the hell does it make? thought Bäckström, who had already lost the thread.
‘The seventh call was made just after lunch,’ Felicia Pettersson went on. ‘At twelve thirty-one, to be precise. He calls a business that is a client of the courier service he works for. He’s supposed to be picking up a package but has the wrong door code.’