‘How do you know that?’ Bäckström asked.
‘Because the customer has gone to lunch. He doesn’t answer. So he then makes his eighth call to the courier company to see if they can find the right door code.’
‘You’ve spoken to them?’ Bäckström said. ‘Why did you do that? Was that sensible?’ Young shits, he thought.
‘I think so,’ Felicia said with a nod. ‘But I’ll get to that.’
What the hell is the pretty little thing saying? Bäckström wondered. We’re going to have to have a little chat about respect and authority, he thought.
‘He makes the ninth call after he finished work, at seven or so that evening, and the tenth and final call is made four hours later. At quarter past eleven that evening. Both calls are to the same pay-as-you-go cell that he tried to call that morning. He gets no answer, and both calls are terminated after seven seconds, which has to mean that the owner had switched the phone off. So out of a total of ten calls he made that day, five of them were to the same pay-as-you-go number, and we have no idea who owns that phone.’
‘It doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything except that he was calling a friend to tell them what had been happening to him,’ Bäckström said, sounding as cross as he felt. ‘Don’t all people like that have pay-as-you-go phones? That’s the whole point, isn’t it? That you can’t be traced?’
‘Yes, I know. I’ve got a pay-as-you-go phone myself. It’s actually quite practical,’ she said, looking at Bäckström without seeming the slightest bit bothered.
‘Okay,’ Bäckström said, trying to make his voice softer, since Annika Carlsson’s eyes had already narrowed considerably. ‘I’m sorry, Felicia, but I still don’t understand what’s so odd about any of this.’
‘It’s because he’s disappeared,’ Felicia Pettersson said. ‘Septimus Akofeli has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared,’ Bäckström said. What’s she saying? he thought.
‘Disappeared,’ Felicia went on, nodding. ‘He’s probably been missing since Friday. That morning he delivered the papers as usual, but he never showed up at the courier firm where he works during the day. It’s the first time this has happened, and he’s actually worked there for over a year. His cell is also completely dead as of Friday. Switched off. The last call from his cell is the one he made at quarter past eleven on Thursday evening, to the pay-as-you-go number with the unknown owner, and since then it’s been switched off.’
‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said, nodding encouragingly. So sooty pinched the briefcase, he was thinking.
‘They tried calling him from work several times on Friday,’ Felicia went on. ‘When he didn’t come to work on Monday, one of his colleagues goes round to his home and rings on the door. He lives out in Rinkeby, at seventeen Fornbyvägen, but there was no answer. So he went back outside and looked through the window. He lives in a one-room flat on the ground floor, and the curtains weren’t fully closed. The flat looked empty, according to his workmate. So, if he wasn’t hiding to avoid having to answer the door, he wasn’t home. Later that day the head of the courier firm reported him missing, and because he lives in our police district, this is where the report ended up. I came across it when I was checking him out, and that was when I called his work.
‘To answer your previous question, boss,’ Felicia Pettersson concluded, looking at Bäckström with a perfectly correct expression on her face.
‘This isn’t good,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘We’ll have to try to find... find Akofeli. Can you take it, Annika?’
‘Felicia and I can,’ Annika Carlsson said with a nod.
‘Good,’ Bäckström said, getting up with a jerk. ‘Keep me informed,’ he said.
‘One more thing,’ Bäckström said, stopping in the doorway and letting his gaze sweep over his colleagues before settling on Felicia Pettersson.
‘This business of the calls to that pay-as-you-go number, and the fact that he’s gone missing, obviously isn’t good. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this, and it’s good that you came up with it, Felicia. But that still isn’t what’s bothering me,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head.
‘There’s something else bothering me about Akofeli,’ he repeated.
‘Like what?’ Annika Carlsson asked.
‘Don’t know, I’m still working on it,’ he said, nodding and smiling in spite of his headache. That gave them something to chew on, he thought, as he stepped out into the corridor, since the only thing that was bothering him right now was the lack of a large — very large — and very cold Czech lager.
He could hardly be bothered with people like that sooty. Anyone with a brain ought to be able to work it out, he thought. All the shit that people like that get up to, and I bet he was the one who took that briefcase. If it wasn’t Niemi or Hernandez, of course. Any snotty-nosed little kid could see it wasn’t Stålhammar. He was probably delighted with the meager amount he’d been able to pinch from the victim’s wallet.
Stålhammar beats Danielsson to death. Takes the contents of his wallet and staggers home to Järnvägsgatan. Misses the briefcase containing millions.
Akofeli finds the body. Takes a snoop around Danielsson’s flat. Finds the briefcase. Hides it somewhere. Opens it later in peace and quiet. Discovers that he’s suddenly become a millionaire. And sets off for Tahiti. Nothing more to it than that. And if it wasn’t him, then it was probably Niemi and his little Chilean friend. Okay, high time to get a bite to eat, he thought.
30.
Green Carriers had their offices on Alströmergatan on Kungsholmen. On the way there Annika Carlsson and Felicia Pettersson had discussed the new state of affairs. Anything else would have been peculiar, and almost a dereliction of duty for a couple of proper police officers.
‘So what do we think about all this, Felicia?’ Annika Carlsson said.
‘I hope I’m wrong,’ Felicia said, ‘but the most likely scenario is unfortunately that Akofeli nicked the briefcase and hid it somewhere nearby before he called the emergency desk. After all, we’ve only got his word for it that he called as soon as he found Danielsson.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid that might be what happened. It doesn’t seem unlikely, at any rate.’
‘Which probably means that Akofeli is out of the country by now,’ Felicia concluded.
‘I’ve already spoken to the prosecutor,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘As soon as we’re done with the couriers we can go on to Akofeli’s flat.’
‘We’ll have to arrange to get a set of keys,’ Felicia Pettersson said.
‘I’ve already spoken to the property management company,’ Annika Carlsson said with a smile. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘I take you for the kind of person I like,’ Felicia said. ‘Just teasing, that’s all.’
Green Carriers were on the ground floor, with a sign over the door and half a dozen cycles lined up right across the pavement.
‘If you were coming down here with a pushchair, you’d have to step onto the road,’ Annika Carlsson said with a frown.
‘Cool it, babe,’ Felicia Pettersson said in English, flashing her a broad smile. ‘Maybe deal with that at the end?’
‘You can do the talking,’ Carlsson said. ‘This is your lead.’
First they had spoken to Akofeli’s boss, a Jens Johansson — ‘call me Jensa, everyone who works here does’ — who looked like your standard Swedish computer nerd, and who seemed to be considerably older than Akofeli. Most of all he seemed worried. You could see it in his eyes in spite of his thick glasses.