Alex frowned.
‘And what were they?’
‘Other terms,’ Muhammad said again. ‘It was going to cost less and it would be much easier to get a residence permit.’
He took a deep breath and reached out for his coffee cup.
‘But they were very demanding.’
‘Who?’
‘The smugglers. They had strict rules and it would be the worse for you if you didn’t stick to them. Or if you told anyone. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you, really. Not until my son’s friend was here.’
‘Hasn’t he got here yet?’ Fredrika asked cautiously.
Muhammad shook his head.
‘One morning he was just gone, his father told me. But he never got here. Or if he did, he must be in hiding.’
‘But shouldn’t he have gone to the Migration Agency?’ Alex wondered.
‘Maybe he did,’ suggested Muhammad. ‘But he hasn’t been in touch, anyway.’
‘Did he have family at home in Iraq?’ asked Alex.
‘A fiancée,’ said Muhammad. ‘They were going to get married, but he must have had to go in a hurry. And he didn’t say anything to her before he left, either.’
‘Are you sure he even left his own country?’ Fredrika asked. ‘Couldn’t something have happened to him in Iraq?’
‘Perhaps,’ Muhammad said evasively. ‘But I don’t think so. It’s not like it used to be, news gets around if anything happens to anyone. We would have heard if he’d been kidnapped or anything like that.’
Alex digested this.
‘What made Jakob decide to phone you? Did he know that you had this information?’
Muhammad’s face closed.
‘I’ve got a few contacts,’ he said carefully, and Alex knew he had hit the bull’s-eye. ‘It was them Jakob Ahlbin was ringing about. And then we got onto the other thing; it was me that brought it up.’
‘Jakob wasn’t already aware of it?’
‘No, he got the information from me. After he rang me, we arranged to meet somewhere, and I gave it to him.’
Muhammad looked almost proud.
‘And these contacts of yours, who are they?’ said Alex, trying to keep it casual.
‘For other people who want to come to Sweden,’ said Muhammad quietly, looking down at his hands. ‘I’m not involved in that work myself, I just know who they can phone.’
Alex had colleagues in the national CID who would have sold their own parents for names like those, but he decided not to give them Muhammad. They would have to find him for themselves.
‘Do you think this has anything to do with Jakob Ahlbin’s death?’ Muhammad asked curiously.
Alex’s answer was short and to the point.
‘Maybe, we don’t know. It would be as well for you not to tell anybody we’ve been here.’
Muhammad assured them he would not. And served them more coffee.
‘Hope your friend turns up,’ said Fredrika at the doorway as they were leaving.
Muhammad looked uneasy.
‘Yes, I hope so, too,’ he said. ‘For Farah’s sake if nothing else.’
Fredrika stopped short.
‘For whose sake?’
‘Farah, his fiancée. She’ll be beside herself with worry back home in Baghdad, I’m sure.’
He gave a dejected sigh.
‘You wonder how it can be possible. How someone can just disappear off the face of the earth.’
They had a final meeting in the Den before the weekend started. Peder and Joar were still busy writing up the interview when Alex called them in. It was very plain to him that if looks could kill, then Joar would be a dead man. Peder’s look had more hatred in it than any Alex had ever seen. What the hell had happened?
‘Well the whole bloody lot’s out in the media now,’ Alex said indignantly. ‘And they’ve already made their minds up: the vicar didn’t commit suicide but was murdered by right-wing extremists for taking a stand on the migrant question, which is such a hot potato at the moment.’
He stopped.
‘Is that right? Is Tony Svensson our man?’
‘It’s clearly a lead worth evaluating,’ Joar said thoughtfully, ‘but I don’t think Tony Svensson necessarily did it himself. There are plenty of other interesting characters around him.’
‘Such as?’ asked Alex.
‘I put together a few things after the interview,’ he said. ‘A contact of mine in the national CID gave me a hand; they’ve been watching these guys for a long time because they suspect them of some rather advanced varieties of organised crime. Tony Svensson’s the leader of the group, but under him – or alongside him, really – there are various other known criminals. One of them’s a professional burglar, for example. He’d be more than capable of getting into the Ahlbins’ flat in the middle of the day without being noticed. And another one seems pretty good at getting hold of guns.’
‘But the couple were shot with Jakob Ahlbin’s own hunting pistol,’ objected Alex.
‘True,’ said Joar. ‘But maybe they needed other weapons to threaten their way into the apartment?’
Alex considered this, and glanced towards Peder. The content of Joar’s presentation was clearly new to him. Alex therefore turned to him.
‘Peder, you were interviewing, too. What’s your spontaneous reaction?’
‘I suppose that could all fit,’ he said tersely, and Alex could see the veins protruding tensely in his neck.
Peder got to his feet and nodded to Joar.
‘Have you finished, then? I’ve got something I want to show everybody, too.’
A picture appeared on the white screen behind him as he started a slide show he had prepared.
‘This is Ronny Berg,’ Peder announced loudly. ‘He’s the defector that Jakob Ahlbin had a row with Sons of the People about.’
He fixed the impassive Joar with a triumphant look.
‘I decided to have a chat to him this afternoon,’ he went on. ‘And he gave me some information.’
‘Did you go on your own?’ asked Alex.
Peder breathed in.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think it would be a problem.’
But it was, and Alex knew that Peder knew it. All interviews had to be approved by Alex beforehand.
‘Jakob Ahlbin only imposed one condition on Ronny,’ Peder went on. ‘That he immediately stopped any criminal activity he was involved in. And that was problematic, apparently.’
‘Oh?’ said Alex, raising his eyebrows.
‘The policy of the support group’s very straightforward,’ said Peder. ‘They’re happy to help anybody at all get back on track with their lives again, but they insist the person stops all criminal activity they’re involved in. That was what Tony Svensson meant when he said Jakob had asked Berg for something in return.’
He took a breath and clicked onto the next picture.
‘Ronny Berg, former burglar, had a major heist planned which would bring in lots of cash, and he wanted to keep his fellow members out of it. But the Sons of the People got wind of it and there was big trouble. That was when Ronny Berg decided he wanted to leave the organisation, and he turned to the support group to help him, played repentant sinner and pretended he didn’t sympathise with the aims and ideologies of the organisation any more.
‘Did they swallow it?’ asked Fredrika.
‘Hook, line and sinker,’ said Peder. ‘To start with, at any rate. But then the Sons of the People tipped off the network that its new protegé wasn’t that keen on abandoning crime, after all, and Jakob Ahlbin decided to drop him.’
‘So Ronny Berg went back to the SP?’ said Alex.
‘No, not at all,’ said Peder. ‘He staked everything on doing this dream heist and getting out of the country. But Jakob Ahlbin anticipated his move and tipped off one of the police officers in the support network, who passed it on to his police colleagues.’
Peder looked pleased with himself.
‘Where is he now, then?’ Fredrika asked in confusion.
‘He’s here in Stockholm, in Kronoberg Prison,’ said Peder.