And her nightmare just went on and on.
STOCKHOLM
He waited for them at the agreed place, a few hundred metres from the Globe. The giant golf ball was fabulously illuminated in the darkness. He was one big smile; his heart was pumping wildly and the adrenalin made him see everything so vividly that evening. He had reached his goal at last, his journey was over and now he could make his final payment. He stared up into the clear, starlit night, his head aching with the relief. Happiness hurt when it was this big.
A black car of a type he did not recognise pulled up alongside the pavement where he was standing. A window slid down and the person inside gestured to him to put his haul in the boot and get into the back, right-hand seat. He immediately complied. Opening the car door, he found the woman who had met him at the station sitting in the other back seat. Her face was impassive as he climbed in.
They drove through a cold, wintry Stockholm bathed in moonlight. He was virtually sure they were driving north this time. The spoils lay in their protective black sack in the boot. They must really trust him, since they hadn’t even bothered to check he wasn’t trying to swindle them.
The trust was mutual by this stage, so he felt no unease as they made the short journey. They took a turning off the main road into what looked like some kind of park. Despite the gleam of the moonlight, the night was too dark for him to be able to see properly. They indicated to him to get out, and he did so. The passenger who was sitting beside the driver did so, too. It was the man with the disfigured face. They kept the engine running.
The man’s instructions were wordless; he merely pointed down towards the darkness of the park. Ali followed the pointing finger with his eyes and thought he could see someone standing there, down amongst the trees. Someone waving. The person stepped forward from the shadows. It was the man who spoke Arabic.
He wondered why the meeting had to take place in a deserted park in the middle of the night. Perhaps because their agreement was too sensitive to be dealt with when other people were around. He set off resolutely towards the Arabic speaker. The disfigured man was two steps behind him.
‘I gather it went well today,’ the Arabic speaker said when he reached him.
He smiled at Ali, who beamed back at him.
‘It all went fantastically well,’ he confirmed with the eagerness of a five-year-old keen to impress.
‘You’re a good shot,’ the man said. ‘Lots of other people would have missed a target that was moving so fast.’
Ali could not help feeling proud.
‘I have many years of training behind me, I’m afraid.’
The man gave a satisfied nod.
‘Yes we know, and that was why we chose you.’
He seemed to be wondering what to say next.
‘Come with me,’ he went on, bowing his head in the direction of the woods, where a lake could be seen glittering through the mass of tree trunks.
Ali felt a sudden stab of doubt.
‘Come along,’ said the man. ‘There’s just one more little detail to be taken care of.’
He gave such a warm smile that Ali’s mind was immediately put at rest.
‘When can I see my family again?’ he asked as he went after the man into a clearing.
‘Very, very soon,’ said the man, and turned round.
A second later, a shot rang out. And Ali’s journey was over.
MONDAY 3 MARCH 2008
The corridor was full of bustling activity when Fredrika Bergman got into work on the Monday. Ellen Lind gave her a wide grin as they met, just outside her room.
‘You look radiant! Are you sleeping better now?’
Fredrika nodded and returned the smile happily, feeling almost embarrassed without knowing why. She did not really know why she was sleeping better, either. Perhaps the effect of Saturday’s family dinner had been more positive than she had predicted. And perhaps playing her violin was helping. Now that she had started, she could not stop. The memory was in her fingers and although she made some mistakes, she found she could play piece after piece.
Alex, by contrast, looked as though he had not slept particularly well as he opened the meeting in the Den a short time later and ran through what had come to light over the weekend.
He’s sinking, Fredrika thought anxiously. And we’re not lifting a finger to help him.
Peder and Joar had chosen seats as far away from each other as they could and were both staring fixedly straight ahead. The group had gone from tight-knit to unravelling in just a few days. Fredrika noted with some relief that for once the conflict did not centre on her.
‘I’ve checked out what Ragnar Vinterman told us about Erik Sundelius: the official warnings from his professional body and the prosecution for manslaughter. And it’s all correct,’ said Peder. ‘The question is how it’s significant, in the context.’
‘Need it be significant at all?’ Fredrika asked. ‘Need it be significant in this particular case that Jakob Ahlbin’s psychiatrist treated two other patients negligently, resulting in their suicide? We still don’t think Jakob killed either himself, or his wife.’
‘No,’ said Alex deliberately. ‘No, we don’t. On the other hand, we don’t know exactly what we think did happen, either.’
Fredrika looked doubtful.
‘I’ve been thinking a bit about the Ahlbin sisters,’ she said. ‘And I’m starting to wonder if we’ve made a mistake in separating the two oddities, so to speak.’
The others looked blank, and Fredrika made haste to explain.
‘We keep talking as though the obscure elements in the case have nothing to do with each other. Jakob Ahlbin seems to have shot his wife and then himself, but we still don’t believe it. Johanna Ahlbin seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth, but we don’t know for sure. And there are various reasons for suspecting irregularities in the matter of Karolina Ahlbin’s death, but there, too, we don’t know exactly what may have gone wrong.’
Fredrika paused for breath.
‘What if they’re all interconnected? That’s all I wanted to say.’
With his chin propped in one hand, Alex looked ten years older than he really was.
‘Well,’ he began, ‘I’m pretty sure nobody here has been imagining things aren’t interconnected, the problem is that we can’t quite see how. What thoughts did you have?’
‘I thought it might not have been Karolina who died,’ said Fredrika, squirming a little. ‘I know it sounds mad, of course.’
‘But she was identified by her own sister,’ said Peder, frowning. ‘And she had her driving licence on her.’
‘But how hard is it to get hold of a fake driving licence if you need to?’ asked Fredrika. ‘And what are the odds of a doctor finding out it isn’t genuine? Karolina Ahlbin was identified by a sister whom we haven’t seen hide or hair of since. And if Karolina’s still alive, we know we haven’t seen her either. And that’s the crucial problem, as I see it. Why aren’t they getting in touch, even though the story’s all over the media?’
No one said anything. They had all seen that morning’s papers – full of whole-page articles telling the Ahlbin family’s story. This time the journalists had managed to find pictures of the two girls, too.
‘WHERE IS JOHANNA AHLBIN?’ shrieked one of the headlines, suggesting something could have happened to her, too.
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Alex said to Fredrika, ‘and of course – you may be right. But there could be less dramatic explanations for these anomolies. Karolina Ahlbin hasn’t been in touch for the simple reason that she’s dead, and Johanna because she hasn’t found out what’s happened yet. But I agree – if she hasn’t come forward by the middle of the week we’ll have to take other steps.’
‘You don’t think anything could have happened to her, do you?’ asked Joar.