‘Have you found any tire tracks, then? Above the spot where he was found, I mean?’ Annika Carlsson asked.
‘Loads,’ Chico said with a smile. ‘So we haven’t been able to come up with anything useful there.’
‘Chico,’ Bäckström said. ‘Tell an old dolt like me what you think happened.’
That gave you something to chew on, you little strutting tango dancer, thought Bäckström, who had already received a supporting nod from his colleague Carlsson.
Hernandez had some difficulty hiding his surprise.
‘You want me to tell you what I think happened?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Bäckström said with an encouraging smile. Just as stupid as they always are, always having to ask more than once, he thought.
‘Okay,’ Hernandez said. ‘With the proviso that this is only my personal opinion. As far as the way it started is concerned, I agree completely with what Peter said. The victim was taken by surprise, strangled from behind, undressed, folded in half — he’s thin and in good shape, and I bet he could stand with both palms flat on the floor without bending his legs. When the body was folded in half, the perpetrator secured it with tape round his ankles, across his back, round his shoulders, and back again. The tape was fastened back where he started, around the ankles.
‘Then he was wrapped in plastic cut into sheets from plastic bags, then the parcel was sealed with more of the same silver tape. Then the bundle was stuffed into his newspaper cart. It’s a fairly tall cart, two wheels and two handles, held together by a rectangular metal frame. On the front is a large sack made of canvas, a slightly thicker, waterproof fabric, a bit like tarpaulin. There are also laces or straps sewn into the sack, so that it can be fastened shut or held open. At the top there’s a lid made of the same material, which is sealed with another strap.’
‘How long would all this take, then?’ Bäckström said. ‘From when he was strangled to sealing him inside the bag?’
‘If you’re strong enough and agile enough, and if you’ve got everything you need at hand, it wouldn’t take more than half an hour,’ Chico said. ‘If there are two of you or more, then you could do it in a quarter of an hour.’
‘You think there could be more than one perpetrator?’ Alm said.
‘We can’t rule it out,’ Hernandez said, shrugging. ‘One would be enough, two would be twice as quick. Any more than that and you mainly just get in each other’s way. But sure, there could be more than one.’
Which everyone but a Woodentop could work out perfectly easily, Bäckström thought, giving Alm the evil eye.
‘Then what?’ he asked.
‘First he’s taken out of the apartment in the cart. Probably by the elevator to the ground floor. From there to the nearest place you can park in the street is ten meters. Into the car with the cart and off you go. A total of an hour or so, but since this sort of trip is nearly always done at night and Akofeli was probably murdered in the morning — that’s when he stops showing any sign of life, isn’t it? — then presumably they waited until it was dark before throwing him in the lake. Killed him, wrapped him up, got him ready to go. Then they either put the cart in the car and drove off and waited until it got dark. Or they returned the same evening to fetch him. But I doubt they would have wanted to leave him in his own apartment any longer than necessary.’
‘When did they dump him in Ulvsundasjön, then? The next night, or what?’
Bäckström looked questioningly first at Hernandez, who shook his head, then Niemi, who merely turned his.
‘It’s difficult to say,’ Niemi said. ‘The body was so well packaged that it’s impossible to tell. He could have been dumped on Friday, but it could also have happened considerably later than that. By the way, we’ve had divers there since this morning searching the bed of the lake. They haven’t found anything.’
‘Anything else?’ Bäckström asked.
‘Not at present,’ Niemi said, shaking his head. ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we find anything. Or don’t find anything,’ he added with a thin smile.
‘Okay,’ Bäckström said, desperate for coffee and biscuits. ‘So we repeat the door-to-door, and this time Akofeli is at the top of the list. The building at number one Hasselstigen, and Akofeli’s place on Fornbyvägen. Everything about Akofeli and any contact he may have had with Danielsson, plus anything else that might be of interest. Have we got enough people?’
‘The neighborhood police team in Tensta have said they’ll help with Fornbyvägen,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘It’s their patch, after all, and they’ve got good contacts with the people who live there. It looks like we’ll have to deal with Hasselstigen ourselves. I thought I could take care of that.’
‘Good,’ Bäckström said.
Then he had asked Stigson to stay behind, and as soon as they were alone he had patted him amiably on the arm and pulled another Bäckström classic, the one Carlsson had prompted the previous night.
‘Okay, Oedipus,’ Bäckström said. ‘No hugs this time, right?’
‘You mean her with...,’ Stigson said, cupping his hands over his chest.
‘Her with the melons,’ Bäckström confirmed.
‘I’ve talked to the Anchor about that,’ Stigson said, his cheeks already coloring.
‘Excellent,’ Bäckström said. ‘Just out of interest, is she a lot like your mother?’
‘Who? The Anchor?’
‘The witness, Andersson,’ Bäckström said. ‘You know who I mean. Her with the huge melons.’
‘Not at all,’ Stigson said. ‘My mom’s quite slim, actually.’
Typical, Bäckström thought. The surest sign of them all. Denial. Complete denial.
42.
The neighborhood police in Tensta and Rinkeby had throughout their history devoted the majority of their resources to fostering good relations with the people living in the area. Ninety percent of them immigrants from every hard-pressed corner of the world. The majority of them were refugees from countries where they were not allowed to think or even live. It hadn’t been easy, and the fact that ninety percent of those working for the neighborhood police were ordinary Swedes hadn’t made it any easier. Swedes going back generations, or possibly second- or third-generation migrants. Well established in Swedish society, already rooted in Swedish soil.
Crime fighting had got caught in the middle. All the usual business of policing had slipped behind. Here it was a question of building bridges between people, creating relationships, confidence. A question of the very simplest things, like just being able to talk to another.
‘We’ll get this sorted,’ the head of the neighborhood police said when he discussed the situation with Annika Carlsson. ‘We have good relationships with each other.’
Then he and his colleagues had spent two days talking to Akofeli’s neighbors. A total of a hundred people. They had put up posters of his face all the way from his flat on Fornbyvägen to the closest underground station. They had put posters up in entrance halls, on walls, lampposts, and notice boards within a wide radius. They even set up their mobile police station in the squares in both Rinkeby and Tensta, with murder victim Septimus Akofeli as special offer of the week.
No one had seen anything, no one had heard anything. The few who had actually talked just shook their heads. Most of them didn’t even understand what they were saying.
The door-to-door at number 1 Hasselstigen had gone relatively well in comparison. Pettersson and Stigson, led by Annika Carlsson and with backup from a couple uniformed officers from Solna, had spoken to everyone who lived in the building. With two exceptions, there was no one who recognized Akofeli. No one had seen or heard anything. A lot of them had had questions, a lot of them had been worried. Did they actually dare live in the building anymore?