‘It’ll be okay,’ the radio operator said. ‘Stay where you are, you and your boyfriend, don’t go back to the bag, don’t hang up, and I’ll get a patrol car to come and help you, and you and I can keep talking until they get there.’
‘Thanks,’ Hanna said.
My boyfriend, Axel thought. It didn’t look like all hope was lost, in spite of what had happened to his dick and the fact that he was so cold he was shivering.
The first unit on site was a patrol car from the Western District, containing Inspector Holm and Sergeant Hernandez. Neither Hanna nor Axel had been made to put their hands up, spread their legs, or even be searched. Holm had shone his torch on them, nodded amiably, and introduced himself.
‘My name’s Carsten Holm,’ he said. ‘This is my colleague, Magda Hernandez.’
Then Holm had gone over to the bag, shone his torch at it, nodded toward Hernandez, and took out his radio.
Hernandez had led Hanna and Axel away with her. She had taken a blanket out of the trunk and suggested that they sit in the backseat.
‘You’ll be warmer in there,’ Magda said with a smile. ‘This will soon be sorted out, and I promise we’ll drive you home.’
Christ, what a cop, Axel thought. First eleven I’ve ever seen, he thought.
36.
Annika Carlsson had summarized the situation as she drove: Two seventeen-year-old kids. A girl and a boy. Lived in Jungfrudansen in Solna, at the top of the hill above the shores of Ulvsundasjön. They had gone down for a swim at about half past eleven at night. Their house lay just a hundred meters from their swimming spot.
‘Apparently the boy dived in on his own while his girlfriend sat on the rocks watching. He more or less dived straight onto a large bag, as far as I understand it,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘Then he dragged it up to the shore and got it up onto dry land. When he looked in the bag he realized it contained a dead body.’
‘How the hell do we know that it’s Akofeli, then?’ Bäckström said. In the middle of the night, black as inside a sack, and a sooty in a bag, Bäckström thought. What do they mean, Akofeli? Hello, out here the place is crawling with sooties, he thought.
‘Holm and Hernandez were the first unit on the scene,’ Annika Carlsson explained. ‘Holm’s pretty sure it’s Akofeli. And he says he recognizes the bag. The same bag that Akofeli used when he was delivering papers. One of those big ones on wheels.’
‘Holm and Hernandez. Second time in a week. A bit much for my liking,’ Bäckström said, and snorted. ‘I wonder if we’re dealing with a couple serial killers in a patrol car?’
‘I doubt it’s quite that bad. Mind you, I can see what you’re thinking,’ Annika Carlsson said with a smile. ‘It’s all due to their rotation, and they don’t organize that themselves. This month they’re working nights every Wednesday to Thursday.’
‘What’s wrong with finding bodies in the daytime?’ Bäckström muttered. ‘Then at least you can see that you’ve found a body.’
‘Sorry I woke you,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘But I thought it was probably best that you were in on this one from the very start.’
‘Very sensible of you, Annika,’ Bäckström said. And you got a chance to see how I live. Just in case, he thought.
‘But you were just about to go for your run anyway,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was actually a bit surprised.’
‘Surprised?’
‘At how nice your flat is. Nice furniture, all neat and tidy. Clean.’
‘I like things to be nice and tidy,’ Bäckström lied. Vojne, vojne, he thought, since he had to pay for every single desiccated dust ball in his Hästens bed.
‘Most of the male officers I know who live alone usually live in pigsties,’ Carlsson said.
‘Filthy sods,’ Bäckström said indignantly. You should be grateful, he thought. Who the hell can be bothered to clean after someone like you has come along and stolen their girlfriend?
‘You’re a man of hidden talents, Bäckström,’ Annika Carlsson concluded, smiling at him.
The rest of the drive had passed in silence. Carlsson had crossed the bridge over the Karlberg Channel and carried on beside the shore toward Ulvsundasjön. They must have driven a good couple kilometers along the footpath by the lake. Up a steep, winding hill. Cordons, vehicles, floodlights, the first curious onlookers already in place although it was the middle of the night.
‘This is it,’ Annika Carlsson said as they got out of the car to join the others sent by the emergency control room.
‘Is it the same distance from the other side?’ Bäckström asked. ‘If you’re coming from Huvudsta?’
‘Yes,’ Annika Carlsson nodded. ‘I see what you’re thinking,’ she said.
Gravel paths, hills, several kilometers on foot — the perpetrator must have had a car, Bäckström thought. This isn’t the sort of place you’d drag a bag containing a body, he thought.
37.
Bäckström had started by looking at the body. That checks out, Bäckström thought, once he had reassured himself that some other, entirely unconnected sooty hadn’t turned up in the middle of his murder investigation. The right sooty, Bäckström thought, and he looked even more miserable than he had when Bäckström had seen him sitting on the landing outside Danielsson’s flat.
Then he spotted Toivonen, who was standing some way off, staring at him with his hands deep in his pockets. Bäckström walked over to him to give him something to chew on.
‘What do you think, Toivonen?’ Bäckström said. ‘Murder, suicide, accident?’
‘You talk a lot of shit, Bäckström,’ Toivonen said. ‘Try to do something useful for once. Tell me how the lad ended up here,’ Toivonen said, glaring first at Bäckström, then at the bag containing the body.
‘I think you’re on the wrong track there, Toivonen,’ Bäckström said with an amiable smile. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting that our poor victim might have been mixed up in any funny business, possibly even something criminal?’
‘What do you think?’ Toivonen said, nodding toward the bag down by the shore.
‘There’s nothing to support that,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘All the evidence suggests that Sooty Akofeli was a decent, hardworking young man. His main job was as a bicycle courier. He delivered papers in the middle of the night to earn some extra money. In spite of his impressive qualifications. You almost get the impression that he had philanthropic tendencies.
‘Akofeli could have gone on to do anything he wanted,’ Bäckström continued. ‘If he’d only had the chance to carry on for another twenty, thirty years, I bet you anything you like that he could have got himself his own moped to ride around on.’
‘Unless you feel like taking a swim, Bäckström, I suggest you shut up,’ Toivonen said. ‘A young man’s been murdered and you’re standing here talking shit about him.’
‘Okay, we’ve seen all we need to,’ Bäckström said to Annika Carlsson a quarter of an hour later. ‘What do you say about driving me home?’
‘Of course, Bäckström. I can understand that you’re eager to go for your run.’
On the way back to his cozy abode they talked about this latest development.
‘Get Niemi and Hernandez to take another look at the lad’s flat,’ Bäckström said. ‘Tell them to do it properly this time.’
‘I understand what you mean,’ Carlsson agreed. ‘Considering that he was found inside his own newspaper bag, you mean?’
‘You’re smart, Annika,’ Bäckström said with a grin. ‘I find it hard to believe that he dragged the cart with him to the courier office. He must have gone home in between and dropped it off.’